The Kareoke Candidate

Obama is the Kareoke Candidate. He presents well but every note is borrowed and his sound is the sound of overamplified overprocessed machinery.

Kareoke and disco became popular for the same reason: people with no talent and no discipline could pretend to be dancers and singers. As an old band mate of mine put it, 'it is the audience as the stars instead of the professionals'.

Populism succeeds in elections. It simply cannot govern. If we elect this man, we'll go from a ruthless DJ who only spins what he likes to amateur singers who can stay on message but not on beat. Meanwhile, the sucking sound in the background is our economy being flushed to syncopated blues notes.

Using Bill Richardson and other surrogates, the Obama campaign will keep picking 09-09-Race and giving it to the media kareoke masters of ceremonies for today's news spin cycle. The Wright affair and the Rezko trial are causing Obama's base to erode. That base is passionate about the race issue. His campaign will keep finding ways to hit that button. The best thing the rest of us can do is yawn. It isn't that the conversation isn't important, it is that this isn't a conversation. It is a one-sided attempt to guilt us into voting for Obama. Ignore it.

Barack Obama isn't the Manchurian Candidate; he is the Kareoke Candidate picking his songs from a playbook. He does that well. He is a good singer. That doesn't mean he is a good musician or a bandleader.

Gesthemane: YouTube

My gig tonight was a Maundy Thursday service.
Sing the songs of the death of the Savior.
Pray for forgiveness.
Be quiet as you leave.

Here is something I share with you as a You Tube video. Be well!

Conversations

@John Cowan:

13.4 and women don't get along with each other well enough to be 51.4. Hence, the Democratic Party.

Friend Obama, does a great service, Dr. John. He introduces a conversation. Conversations are the soul of the Web. If our technology is a greater good, this is where it is more easily sensed.

Whatever the greater scary of economics and war, what America wants is to feel good about itself again. What change we make we make because we need that.

The conversation of race is a conversation the people choose. It is a conversation that may indeed be a healing force in our country.

Whatever we speculate, it is a conversation that the young want or a very important demographic drops away from Friend Obama.

Conversation is their birthright.

It Was A Good Speech

>>Will his speech help or hurt his chances of becoming President?

It won’t change the fact that he waited too late and made too many contradictory statements. Obama lacks discernment and the ability to make the right decisions even on topics to which he has given considerable thought. When it got to the crunch, he chose to protect his candidacy instead of the values he espoused. He is not ready for the toughest job in the world. He may be someday, but his time is not yet come.

>>And is our nation in a racial stalemate?

No. If it were, Obama's candidacy could not have come as far as it has. He is the proof of change if not the agent of change. Have we come far enough? The fact as stated by him that statements such as those made by Wright are typical of the black church experience in America proves we have not. We have a lot of anger and hate yet to lay down.

However, the sad fact is if he does lose this nomination, it will be the statements of his pastor and his own refusal to confront him many years ago that beat him. Trying to spin that any other way is exactly the kind of response that keeps us from making that progress so many desire so earnestly.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Senator Obama gives his speech tomorrow. I hope it is a good one.

Race divides America.
Gender divides America.
Wealth divides America.
War divides America.

America is a land divided.
Are we a family divided, too?

Lord, let us find a way from the hate that divides us.
Show us the bridge across these troubled waters
In this saddest of weeks for the followers of Jesus
Show us mercy and a way into the Promised Land
Undivided by hate
United by your purpose
Living together in hope of His Return
Lead us
Love us
Keep us
Forever in your hands.

Amen