If you haven’t yet seen/heard the new Barack Obama-boosting clip on YouTube, “Yes We Can,” you can click here to go see it. Musically, it’s a production of Will.i.am, a rapper/producer with the group the Black Eyed Peas. The filming was done by Jesse Dylan. As the LA Times puts it:

Filmmaker Jesse Dylan, son of social activist and rock icon Bob Dylan, came on board to film will.i.am and friends in the studio on Jan. 29. The original plan was to record a Los Angeles studio session involving the producer, Legend and Johansson. But dozens of other celebrities (including Tatyana Ali, “Lost’s” Harold Perrineau and actress Amber Valletta) became unexpectedly involved, in an apparently heartfelt outpouring of Obama support.

“I heard [the song] on Tuesday, shot footage Wednesday and Thursday last week, cut it on Friday and it went online,” Dylan said. “It was very organic. It came out of everyone’s belief in Barack’s speech. His speech is so eloquent, Will became passionate about it — passionate enough to make a song about it.

“That was Will’s intention: These themes dramatize the themes Barack has been talking about.”

So, in 2008, the LA Times is still calling Bob Dylan a “social activist.” Well, doubtless he does engage in all kinds of social activities, but if they’re alluding to attempts to change society in a political sense, I’d sure appreciate seeing a list of things he’s pursued in that area in the last 35 years (or ever, if truth be told, with civil rights being the exception).

My first thought on watching the clip was: Can you imagine if some Republicans put together something like this, echoing and reciting a speech of Dubya’s in a split screen beside him, putting phrases in it to music and so on? Can you even conceive of what absolute loons they would be held up to be?

However, putting that aside, this video of all of these celebrities plaintively begging for change puts its finger, in a way, on something about this Barack Obama phenomenon that I’ve been mulling over lately. Obama himself has a likeable personality. I disagree with his political policies, to the extent he enunciates them in a concrete way, but, in contrast to how other major Democrat politicians often strike me, I do not find his way of expressing his positions to be overly grating or condescending or arrogant. Barack himself does not much disturb me. His supporters, however, do. The extent to which some people are projecting all of their hopes and dreams onto this man, often using quasi-religious language, is mind-boggling and bodes no good. What is it, precisely, that his most fervent fans hope that he accomplishes in his first 100 days as president? In his first year? In his first term? “Yes we can!” Behind that chant lies a million specific, and often clashing, wishes and hopes. Obama, or any president, is going to have to make very real decisions on specific policies, when it comes to dealing with foreign policy and defense, the economy, health care, entitlements, and even those dreaded social issues. Any time a president makes a decision in one direction or another he (or she) is going to outrage people who think he is going too far, or not far enough. He is going to face congressional opposition. He is going to have to compromise to one extent or another to get things passed. He is going to be blamed for things that go wrong during his watch. Most of all, he is going to disappoint those who felt that the world would become a suddenly brighter, happier place once he took the oath of office. In Obama’s case, that would be a whole lot of people, it seems.

Rick Green wrote in the Hartford Courant yesterday:

Whatever happens today, whomever you vote for, know this: Something rare happened in Hartford yesterday.

The “unlikely journey” of Barack Obama swirled into the city, and for a few transcendent hours, I was somewhere else, more perfect.

He goes on, in what is becoming a familiar theme, to invoke a 66-year-old woman attending the rally who “has never voted for a Democrat for president in her life,” but, we are left to assume, plans on making an exception for this one — his liberal prescriptions for the country be damned. I’m extremely dubious as to the reality and/or truthfulness of such people.

Few would be happier than yours-truly to see an end to the Clintons’ stranglehold on Democratic politics, and to see frustration dealt to their plans to make the White House their playhouse for another eight years. To the extent that Barack Obama is against demonizing those with whom he disagrees politically — as he has said — that would be a welcome and refreshing change, too. But, in the end, you’re supposed to be an adult in order to vote (18 years old, anyway), and the adult thing to do, surely, is to vote for the candidate who is most likely to institute policies with which you agree, rather than voting for the candidate who seems to have the most pleasant personality. I’m not sure how much currency that notion has with the “Yes We Can” crowd.

Putting one’s trust in princes has never been wise, as the psalm sayeth. Although one should try to avoid doing it in all circumstances, one can’t help feeling some disappointment when a politician goes back on a clear commitment and betrays one’s support. What’s far more foolish, however, is to have a vast kind of amorphous trust in a political leader to fulfill one’s hopes and dreams when neither you nor he have even gotten around to specifying exactly what they are. Watching people seeming to do just that on a mass scale is disturbing, but, I guess, since the psalmist probably wouldn’t be all that surprised, I really shouldn’t be either.

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