Obama the Show-Tune Orator
Presidential speechwriters?
Our lesson for today comes from George and Ira Gershwin:
“They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round.
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound.
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly.
They told Marconi wireless was a phony…”
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang it in the film Shall We Dance? (1937) Seventy-five years on, the president revived it to tap-dance around his rising gas prices and falling approval numbers. – Mark Steyn
Funny Steyn should mention Astaire & Rogers. They — and the Tin Pan Alley lyricists who put words in their mouths — must be Obama’s favorite source for quotes. In his inaugural address, our putative President talked about how the American people must “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off” and start all over again — lyrics from Swing Time, with Astaire & Rogers! Or could it be that his speech writers are just having fun making a fool of him, knowing how, and why, he suffers from a certain cultural illiteracy?
