“The Great Race” is one of my favorite movies, and not just because a few of my friends and I are in the huge crowd around the Eiffel Tower at the end. One of the more famous scenes is the pie fight in the Royal bakery (video below). During the fight, Tony Curtis, who plays The Great Leslie, avoids all the raspberries, blueberries, and butter cream frosting being hurled around, while all around him are getting creamed, literally.

I was reminded of the pie fight while reading the news reports of Barack Obama’s experience in the sordid world of Chicago politics, in which all around him were wallowing in the mud of that city’s politics-as-usual while he remained squeaky clean and above the fray, just like The Great Leslie.

But even Leslie’s immaculate attire got soiled in the end. Will reality imitate Hollywood? I guess we’ll see.