There is quite some controversy surrounding a video, published at YouTube, made by Barack Obama supporters attacking Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton responded by saying: “I haven’t seen it but I’m pleased that it seems to be taking attention away from what used to be on YouTube and getting a lot of hits, namely me singing ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Everybody in the world now knows I can’t carry a tune. I thank heavens for small favors and the attention has shifted, and now maybe people won’t have to tune in and hear me screeching about ‘The Star Spangled Banner’.” She added on a more serious note: “I think anything that drives interest in these campaigns and get people who otherwise are not at all interested in politics, I think that’s pretty good. I might quibble a little bit about the content, but if we get more people, especially young people, thinking about politics, I’m happy about that.”
Interestingly enough, not long after the anti-Hillary video was published, a somewhat similar anti-Obama video appeared on YouTube, made by Hillary supporters.
A new video called “Barack 1984” projects Obama on the Big Brother screen, flush with confidence yet poised to lose, just like his favorite football team. The ad ends with the warning, “The Bears Lost So Will Obama.” Riding the buzz, it is Tuesday’s most viewed video in YouTube’s “News and Politics” section, and the 8th most popular YouTube video overall. By reversing the premise of the Hillary spoof, the video provides what columnist Joe Klein imagined on Monday: “I could put together a reel of Obama sound bites that sounds every bit as trite as Hillary in this guerrilla mashup. But I wouldn’t have the skills or sensibility to do it this way; very few in my generation would.”
You all know me as someone who detests the uberaggressive type of debate, the uberpartisanship, etc. that seems to be dominant in the U.S. right now… but I have to admit that I laughed about these two videos and about Hillary Clinton’s reaction. She did the right thing, I think, by treating it as some kind of joke, by not taking it seriously.
That being said, these videos are yet another sign of increasingly aggressive debates. Not just between the two major American political parties, but even within individual parties. This is, in my opinion, not a good thing. The debate should be about policies, about content, not about this kind of nonsense.
It’s entertainment, not politics.
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