The Beginning of the Gospel of Barack Obama, the Son of God (According to Mark Shea)
In other news Jill Stanek has a fundraiser letter by Michelle Obama saying the partial-birth abortion ban is unconstitutional.
In other Obama news.
From CNN to the New York Times, the media hyped Barack Obama’s Portland, Oregon rally on Sunday, some comparing him to a rock star.
Unmentioned in national reporting was the fact that Obama was preceded by a rare, 45-minute free concert by actual rock stars The Decemberists. The Portland-based band has drawn rave reviews from Rolling Stone magazine, which gave their 2005 album Picaresque four and a half stars (out of five), and another four and a half stars for 2007’s The Crane Wife.
How many of the people showed up to hear Obama, and how many to hear the band?
Hugh Hewitt also mentions that the Decemberists normally start of their set playing the Soviet National Anthem. Whether it happened in this case is not currently known, but it would be appropriate. It is though an interesting question on how many showed up for Decemberists specifically. I grew up in Portland which has more "Free Tibet" and liberal bumper stickers per capita than anywhere else I have seen so I would not be surprised at the large turnout if it was mainly for Obama. It is just interesting that the press failed to mention this at all.
5 comments
Your Mark Shea link is broken
Shame, the Decemberists are a good band but pretty much par for the course for musicians.
Someone posted something recently, I think it was Dawn Eden, about the daring of conservative leaning artists, wish we could hear about them.
Michelle Obama thinks that a *ban* on partial-birth abortion is unconstitutional…but a word got left out of the post. Wouldn’t want anyone to think the Obamas are against that procedure.
The Decemberists are fun as storytellers; I’m assuming the Soviet National Anthem thing is something they do to cultivate their artsy wordy storyteller image.
Full disclosure: I’m from Portland, and I still live there, and I take a little pride in the fact that a band with (if nothing else) awesome lyrics came from here…not that I endorse all or even most of their messages.
I have to say, the (’44) Soviet National Anthem is one of the greatest, most stirring pieces of music ever written. Which is too bad, because of the many moral failings of the polity to which it was attached. Musically though, it’s superb. I guess it’s just another example of how genuine human excellence can be diminished by having a faulty hierarchy of moral ends.