representation, reality, and bullet wounds

obama on 60 minutes explaining why he's not going to release the bin laden-with-a-bullet pics: they're gruesome etc, and that's not the kind of people we are. so let me see: we're the kind of people who would shoot you in the face, but not the kind of people who would look at images of it. or: we're the kind of people for whom reality and representation have come apart entirely. i also must say that i'm tired of that habitual rhetorical twist; obama uses it in every speech in every context: the america we want to be etc.