Britain’s Susan Boyle Delivers Hope Where Obama Has Failed
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 19, 2009
By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone
It’s been a daunting few weeks for so many… conservatives, liberals, statists, progressives, Catholics, military veterans, Somali pirates, Janeane Garofalo, you name it. Tough, harsh times. Grim and hopeless for too many.
All the lofty “hope and change” Pres. Barack Obama promised voters months ago is melting away like a strawberry-flavored snow cone in Death Valley in August.
Susan Boyle's electrifying performance on Britain's Got Talent, viewed online
And then, the most unlikely person has restored hope to millions. She is the culmination of all our fragile, innocent ideals, of the burning need in most all of us to have within reach the fulfillment of dreams and happy endings.
A frumpy, unemployed middle-aged woman from a small village in Scotland, with a voice like spun gold, is now an international sensation… an underdog for us to champion.
Susan Boyle personifies hope and drive and conviction and triumph over much larger adversaries, exquisitely wrapping Cinderella, Rocky Balboa, George Bailey, Eliza Doolittle, and the Boston Tea Party rebels into one unexpected, goosebump-producing package.
At the time of this writing, more than 40 million people had viewed at least one of a collective number of online videos of Susan’s stunning performance on Britain’s Got Talent that aired on television last week.
Updated: Washington Post, April 20, 2009:
According to Visible Measures, which tracks videos from YouTube, MySpace and other video-sharing sites, all Boyle-oriented videos — including clips of her television interviews and her recently released rendition of “Cry Me a River,” recorded 10 years ago for a charity CD — have generated a total of 85.2 million views. Nearly 20 million of those views came overnight.
What is remarkable in the hope that Susan delivers is that it is without guile, without promise to be delivered. Hope is delivered unadorned and unconditionally, but she makes no promise to deliver anything except a competent performance. Should she fail, no faith is breached, no dreams dashed. Obama, on the other hand, delivered promise after promise to American voters, planting the seeds of hope, but without substance or specifics. “Hope” was dished out frequently in uplifting but vague terms, and defining it was pretty much left up to each voter, who then filled in a blank mental slate as was appropriate for his or her circumstances.
Consequently, having broken or reversed, to date, many of those promises, he has sullied his overall message of hope. Like millions of tiny pinpricks, each infraction inflicts a bit more pain each time, and a diminishing of hope. Distrust has sunk in. Obama has failed in the delivery of so many of his vague but grandiose promises. He has, therefore, been more effective in delivering disappointment and disillusionment. Susan has become the unexpected bearer of hope; Obama has not yet, if ever, become that courier. And he had promised to deliver so much.
That is one of the many flaws of socialism. The perfection it claims it will deliver cannot be.
God bless you, Susan. Even if this is a contrived and calculated creation of American Idol’s genius-in-marketing Simon Cowell’s, God bless you. So many of us needed someone right now like you to cheer about, someone we can wrap our hearts around, someone who selflessly gives of herself to so many while in pursuit of her dream. We needed hope and you came out of the Scottish mist and delivered it.
And, we also needed a swift kick in the butt to be reminded that Mom always said we should never judge a book by its cover.
Embedding of any of the YouTube videos of the performance has been disabled, so here is a YouTube link to the video:
Susan Boyle, Britain’s Got Talent 2009, “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables.
*****
Related posts:
Ricky Jay, NYTimes.com: Desperately Seeking Susan
Gateway Pundit: Priest Not Surprised With Susan Boyle’s Performance
The Lioness: Susan Boyle – Beauty Beyond Skin-deep
Eric Golub, Big Hollywood: From Susan Boyle to Janeane Garofalo
Tanner Stransky, EW.com, Hollywood Insider: Piers Morgan on Susan Boyle: ‘She can do whatever she wants now’
Gary Graham, Big Hollywood: Sympathy Vote
BananaBlueberry: Be Inspired… By Susan Boyle
Country Universe: The Beauty of Susan Boyle
Chris Stigall, Big Hollywood: A Devastating Week for Elitism
The Anchoress: Can’t get enough of Susan Boyle?
TruthHugger: Susan Boyle Is The Lesson
Random Good Stuff: Susan Boyle: From Zero to Hero
Jim Blazsik: Who in the world is Susan Boyle? UPDATE: Susan Boyle’s first ever song – Cry Me a River
Without Wax.tv: Susan Boyle Taught Me an Important Lesson
Buhay sa Korea: Susan Boyle dreamed…
La Shawn Barber’s Corner: Susan Boyle Stuns Simon Cowell
Ben Leach, Telegraph.co.uk: Early recording of Britain’s Got Talent’s Susan Boyle unearthed
Sarah Lyall, New York Times: Unlikely Singer Is YouTube Sensation
Kyle Smith, New York Post: Why Susan Boyle Is More Real Than Our Pretender in Chief
Ben Leach, Telegraph.co.uk: Early recording of Britain’s Got Talent’s Susan Boyle unearthed
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Boyle Shocks Britain but Not Her Priest…
Amazing as it is Father Basil Clark, who watched the show from Broxburn, Scotland, was not surprised when Susan Boyle amazed all of England and the world . As reported by the Catholic News Service:
“He has seen the situation unfold many times …