Obama Musical: Silly Propaganda and Bad Songs

Hope—The Obama Musical Story is not political, insists its composer—“Right, but only in the sense that Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will was just a documentary.” The musical premiered in Germany (where the president is still a “messiah”), and it’s pure “political propaganda”—not to mention “premature,” writes Daniel Schwammenthal in the Wall Street Journal. “Even Jesus Christ had to wait nearly 2,000 years before he became a Superstar.”

Political agenda-pushing aside, it’s not even a very good musical, with laughable lyrics like “I think we fit together like a hand inside a glove—I know this is no ordinary kind of love,” (that's Barack wooing Michelle) and “See you in November, and I'm the Great Defender.” Though some songs were a bit catchy, “the awkward dialogue, the flat characters and poor acting make this show, at more than three hours, feel longer than the presidency," writes Schwammenthal. He also happens to pen editorials for the Journal's Europe edition and confesses that he went only to "bury Hope, not to praise it."
(More Obama musical stories.)