I have to admit that I find Barack Obama charming. But then, the author Rumer Godden described her first husband as “charming”, adding “I have mistrusted charm every since”.

In the same way, I find something compelling and catchy about this “yes we can” video.  If nothing else (and I’m pretty sure there is nothing else), it’s catchy. At the same time, the rhythmic chanting of glassy-eyed, “I’m too cool to have facial expressions” celebrities is faintly creepy. 

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY]

My seven-year old summed the whole message up after about 5 seconds of viewing: “Yes, we can what? That’s dumb.” 

But I have discovered a way of increasing  the entertainment factor of the video exponentially: every time one of the celebrity-automatons echoes “Yes we can”, answer “No you can’t”. This provides good training for dealing with politicians with grand ideas for “change” and, incidentally, small children. After all, if you have to say a phrase eighty times a day, it’s good to have a catchy beat to go with it.

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Andrea adds: “Yes, we can” look profoundly serious and important while saying nothing of substance. Yes, we can. (From time to time I consider whether I could join a political party. Just when I start to think perhaps I could, I see something like this…and it’s back to square one. No, I can’t.)