The Boss Backs Obama for President - AOL News
After the beating John Kerry took for accepting so many celebrity endorsements in 2004, some stars have been nervous about putting their weight behind a candidate this year. Some conservative Americans get very angry when they see a celebrity endorse a non-conservative candidate. Liberal elitists and other names are thrown at them. So when a concert tour was started in 2004 to support John Kerry, with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty and REM, I'm not sure it helped his candidacy as much as bring out the vitriol of those angry conservatives. But I don't think too many people were fully supportive of Kerry at that time. I mean I recognized his war record and figured he'd better than Bush, but I wasn't inspired by the man. 2004 was more about Anybody But Bush.
But 2008 is different. Bush is obviously a non-factor, but his policies and the disasters he's leaving behind aren't. This year people are inspired by one man and feel excited about his candidacy. Barack Obama has been lighting up people's minds and hearts for several months now and Bruce Springsteen is the latest celebrity to put his name behind this man. I don't believe Bruce was half-hearted when he supported Kerry, but he is way more outspoken about his feelings for Barack. "He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years."
That's huge. People like George Clooney have refrained from giving their support because they fear it will hurt more than help. But I think the people of this country are so disgusted with the direction America has gone these last four years that they are giving no mind to what the angry conservatives are saying. And while the war in Iraq might be part of it, the most disgraceful moment of these last four years has to be the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Because that shouldn't ever happen in America. And people watching TV that week saw themselves swimming in those streets and suffering and dying in the squalor of the Super Dome and having no government there to help them when the time was most dire. This wasn't Haiti or some African province. These weren't mud hut people in Thailand. These were Americans suffering and dying in America and it happened in one of our favorite cities, so why couldn't it happen in your city.
What would the response be after a devastating terrorist attack in your city. A dirty bomb say. Would the government be as slow to help us then? If that didn't enter many people's minds that week and for weeks after I'd be very surprised. While Katrina's aftermath was claming lives, George Bush stayed on vacation in Texas and Condaleeza Rice shopped in Manhattan and went to Broadway shows. They lost any moral supremacy they had that week. Hollywood Liberal Elitist Sean Penn, he went down there and got in a boat and saved people from drowning. He was a hero, maybe for the first time in his life, but he became one that week and because of that His Voice Has Value. Celebrities who help have value, they bring attention to a cause that might lack a spotlight.
I have been very lazy lately and have not read as much about Obama as I want to before giving my unquestioned support, but I'm almost there. That Bruce likes Obama doesn't change anything for me. There's plenty of celebrities that I like and respect who are going for McCain and Hillary. But having listened to Bruce's music for 30 years now I do know what he means about speaking to the America he's envisioned. That's my America, too.
The Freditor
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