Celebrity Endorsements and Rhetoric

So this is what happens when The Black Eyed Peas and others decide to get behind your nomination campaign. Personally, I'd prefer this or this but maybe that's just me being a music snob. Though you can't really argue with having Scarlett Johannsen in your video, can you?

The interesting thing about the song, is how little they had to actually do to it to make it work musically. The Clinton attacks on Obama have focused on his verbosity and, as they put it, rhetoric. Obviously we are meant to focus on the negativity of the word rhetoric. We associate it with tub thumping and empty words. There is no doubt that at times, Obama's message can be vague. But in the heat of a nomination battle, what good is making specific promises going to be do for a candidate? There is a chance they might not be able to be kept (eg if the Republicans retake Congress), or, as we know all to well here in Ireland, they just might not be kept at all. What is wrong with talking to your audience and talking them up, instead of talking down to them, and hectoring them? Surely a country that believes in itself is more capable than one that has lost faith in its own abilities? Witness Ireland post Italia 90, 1960s America reaching for the moon. Feel the hairs stand on the back of your neck when you listen to the New Hampshire speech that the above song is based on, and contrast that to what happens to your body when you hear An Taoiseach attempt to speak in public. Do this and dare to believe that not all rhetoric is empty, and not all hope is false.