Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Barack Obama shocks the world by winning a Grammy


Several months ago, I congratulated Former Vice President Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Lots of people offered their congratulations, but I was the first.

My congratulations to Gore came a week before the official announcement. Click here to read it, and come back to see us......


Had I not been distracted for the last month by various Baptist controversies, I would've trotted out another display of my prophetic gifts. Too late.

Barack Obama has won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word recording for his campaign bio, "The Audacity of Hope".

I like Obama a lot. He's the Democrat who comes closest to making sense on Free Trade issues, as I pointed out here, but he was back-pedaling a little on the issue in Wisconsin last night, wandering into the "free trade has to represent everybody" thickets. (My belief is that I don't worry about you when I trade with Starbucks, you don't worry about me when you trade with Amazon.com, etc.) Barack Obama can walk up to a podium and cause you to start nodding along and deciding to live a better life. The same text, in the newspaper the next morning, is almost unreadable.

Back to my point....Obama now has two Grammys to act as a counter-balance to Bill Clinton's pair. Bill Clinton's surrogate, Hillary, who is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the shadow of her husband, only has one. If they ever allow the official candidates to lay out their bling on the podiums during a presidential debate, Obama will have the biggest pile.

For those of you who still doubt my point in the first link that these awards are an ideological, predictable farce, let me drag this in for additional emphasis....

Bill Clinton was seeking his third Grammy with "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World," a call to public service. Another former Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, also was in the running, with "Sunday Morning in Plains: Bringing Peace to a Changing World," a collection of Bible lessons. Carter won the award last year.....
Not to be outdone by Obama, Hillary Clinton
won the spoken word prize in 1997, while she was still first lady, for her book "It Takes a Village." (Note to the author of this piece....If it was Hillary's turn to win the Grammy in '97, Obama wasn't even on the radar yet. Also, Obama now has two Grammys. That means that she's been outdone by Obama, right?)
No Republican politician has won the category since Everett Dirksen, an Illinois congressman and senator, in 1968.

Is it because Democrats have better diction? Is it because their words are more soothing on cross-country flights? Or is it because these awards are an ideological, predictable farce?

Obama picture from Townhall.com

3 comments:

Sew daze said...

Barack is hot!!

Jay@Soob said...

Oh, oh, pick me, pick me! I'll take the one with "farce" in it.
Al Gore beating out Irena Sendler was pretty much the piano, piano bench and completely bewildered pianist that broke the camels back as far as the "purity" of Nobel Peace prize goes.

And don't even get me started on award shows.

Anonymous said...

I am learning so much from reading this blog. I never knew there were grammys for spoken word. I am learning so much about pop culture.
zbethwalker