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Promising to change everything but his party’s moribund ideology, Grammy Award winner Barack Obama’s pyrotechnic licks couldn’t sweeten his song’s sour chorus of leftist tripe: namely, America is going down the dumper; Republicans are holding the plunger; and, to save you from yourself, Americans need a nanny state.
Underscoring this theme with a dissonant recitation of everything you’re allegedly incapable of achieving without a bureaucrat for a life coach, in the ditty (Short) Change, Obama’s opus emphasizes government rewards not government reforms; and, thereby, defines change as making the federal government more expensive, more expansive and more intrusive upon Americans – for your own good, of course.
Shifting his tenor into a minor key on the track Yes, We Can (Except in Iraq), in foreign affairs Obama! Live! (In Denver!) conflates popularity with purpose; and emphasizes his “new” national insecurity calculus in the ballad How does it play in Paris? In sync with this riff, Obama assails the Bush administration’s over-arching strategy of expanding liberty; and, proffers an ad hoc, politically palatable pragmatism – the very approach that endangered us in the first place. Such a harmony of irrationality suits a morally relative party denying the fact that, for an individual or a nation, true moral leaders are often unpopular.
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Sure, other sundry hypocrisies abound – notably on Disown Your Own Failure, where Obama claims to be running against a Washington run by the “Done Nothing, Don’t Care” Democrat Congress in which he serves. Yet why further dwell upon this dirge of a disc? We’ve heard this Pied Piper of False Hope and Empty Promise’s gloomy tune for decades.
As for the gig’s atmospherics, Obama! Live! (In Denver!)’s piqued performance brings tears to the eyes of all who bank their hope in government spending not Americans’ resilience; and in peace through sop not peace through strength. It also brings tears to the eyes of all who believe our America is, must, and will remain the greatest nation on earth because of her sovereign, resplendent citizens.
Obama! Live! (In Denver!) will sell well in its neo-left niche. But this repackaged liberal classic won’t play with those who know political muzak when they hear it; and who never buy a limp disc for its cover.
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