Yes We Can

I am well and truly at the point where I no longer care who wins the Democratic primaries. Both candidates have strong plusses and devastating minuses; and when I weight it all up in my mind, all I know is that we'll end up with something better than we've got -- but probably not as much better as many of us had hoped.

Even so: as a student of media, I'm blown away by this:



What a stunning piece of propaganda. And I mean that in a good way -- it's one of the best examples of the art form we've seen since Bill Clinton introduced us to "A Town Called Hope" all the way back in 1992.

Yes, we can. Can do what? That question's not answered here, and we're still left probing and sounding the candidates to get their answers to that one. But my favorite model of social change says that you don't get anywhere until you believe in your own mind that change is even possible; and it's hard to watch this thing and not remember that we come from a long line of Americans for whom change was a necessity, a passion, and an art form in is own right.

The act of setting Obama's stump speech -- already a great one -- to music will also probably elevate it into American oratorical history. Not a bad thing. It's poetry, and all it needed was a tune.