Here's Peter Suderman, unimpressed by the Obama "Yes, We Can" ad, and for an interesting reason. He is impressed by Obama's intelligence, yes...:
But there’s another side to Obama’s appeal, an emotional side that has less to do with intelligence and more to do with teary-eyed inspiration, and that is the side on which this video focuses on almost exclusively. Put in black and white, scored with a little acoustic riffing and soulful, expertly Pro-Tooled background singing, he becomes a vector for treacly indie-yuppie political fantasy. ...Except it’s worse than that, lower; it’s not pandering exclusively to the young, urban liberal crowd, but to a broader, more suburban cohort that draws its cues from them. This is the secular, liberal equivalent of megachurch-friendly Christian pop, sugar-coated and sanitized, as bland as a t-shirt from the Gap. It’s pseudo-inspiration, processed and prepackaged into a generically trendy, banal mush that robs its central figure of any of the unique qualities that make him a compelling candidate to begin with.
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I like Obama. I hope I get to vote for him this November.
I listen to those who claim he's hollow and smile. Just like I smiled when I heard the relatives in Louisiana were for the first time in their lives voting Republican for President. They don't feel the nation is ready for a woman or black for President.
When I hear Reagan as God I recall all the abuses of our system by his cronies. I also wonder if the problems in south America today aren't the result of his errant and illegal policies there.
The mindset that the executive branch is above the legislative and judicial branches of our government that we're having problems with today was a cornerstone of Reagan's administration.
The good thing about Bush as far as the Reagan legacy goes is I believe this administration will surpass Reagan's of criminal prosecutions, staff being prosecuted of course.
Yesterday I got to hear an earfull on McCain being a democrat. Of course the same person considers Obama and Clinton communists. I had to listen politely and smile, he's my attorney on an important issue at hand. When he came up for air I told him I was probably a communist too.
Thanks anon evang for those wonderful videos. They were anything but "happy clappy", but rather deeply inspiring and very powerful. There ARE wonderful things being done out there with contemporary Christian music. You just have to separate the wonderful from the trite.
You're welcome, Larry. And thank you.
"what seems shallow to one person can be full of profound meaning to another, not just on an emotional level but on a rational one (and even a spiritual one)."
That's a very good point, anon evang. In a similar vein, I recall reading that one of the St. Theresas dearly loved the schlockiest of religious "art".
"Reagan was the most ideologically well-defined candidates in American history."
Simon: I don't contest that point. I doubt however, that it had much to do with why he was so ardently loved. That, I think, was just as shallow in 1979 as poeple's love of Obama now.
I thought the Obama ad was pure Woodstock, and it didn't make me want to vote for him.
Is anyone else bothered by Obama's dismissal, in a recent Democratic debate, of the mastery of details required to run the government as "bureaucracy"?
I don't trust the man to govern the country, and it has zip to do with his being bi-racial.
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