Easy Listening President

Back in the 1950s, when our rock music began to get a little "raunchy" (there was even one tune with that word as its title!), a new music format arose... called "Easy Listening". It reminded me of the old bible verse about being luke warm - worthy only of being spit out!

Today Paul Greenberg has a great column in which he describes how masses are lulled by Obama's "easy listening" rhetoric. It's great if you just don't pay attention. Paul concludes with:

"... our president's answers puzzle only if one takes them seriously. If you just lean back and let his pleasant voice wash over you in rhythmic waves, like the sound of easy-listening music coming from a radio someone has left on in the corner of a room, it can really be quite soothing. Only if you try to find a meaning in his words, or attempt to figure out the logic of his positions, does Barack Obama's smooth delivery begin to sound hollow at the core.

The trick is not to pay too much attention on these occasions. This president sounds just fine if you'll only put your mind in idle. What did G.K. Chesterton say about Times Square when he first glimpsed the Great White Way? "What a glorious garden of wonder this would be, to anyone who was lucky enough to be unable to read." Watching the presidential press conference Tuesday evening would have been an uplifting experience if only one weren't trying to make sense of what he was actually saying."

As I have written before, I long to hear someone say, "Wait a minute! What did he just say?"