Harry Allen, the Media Assassin, has a blog. And, just as you would expect, it is filled with writing that is enjoyable to read and more than its share of expert analysis. I mean, it’s Harry Allen.

So he does a very well-thought out entry reflecting on the Will.I.Am/Barack Obama connection that makes a lot of valid and interesting points, and is filled with quotable line after quotable line, but this one particularly struck a chord with me:

…the question I had after I first heard Black Eyed Peas is very similar to the one I had after hearing white people lose their minds over Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address: Where’s the funk?

Comparing a typical Obama speech to today’s, great Black speechmakers—say, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, or Juanita Bynum, to name obvious ones—is like comparing the Kool & the Gang of 1981’s Something Special (”Get Down On It”) with the Kool & the Gang of 1973’s Wild and Peaceful (”Funky Stuff,” “Jungle Boogie,” “Hollywood Swinging.”)

From “No, Seriously: I’d Much Rather Listen to Obama Girl”.

But yeah, almost the exact same thought (minus Kool and the Gang) popped into my head after Obama-mania reached its first peak after the 04 DNC. How was Obama’s speech getting all this love, when Al Sharpton was clearly the star of the show? Both in what he said and what he did: they gave him 5 minutes to speak, but he commandeered the podium for 20 minutes, letting rip with the most progressive statements about disastrous foreign policy and social inequality that anyone dared to speak during that convention. Exactly the kind of shit the brass of the Democratic Party didn’t want to have anything to do with; exactly the kind of rhetoric that could have won the election for them if they had embraced it.

I guess they were too busy trying to recapture the Joe-mentum of 2000. Yeah that worked out well…

Anyway, if the title wasn’t an obvious enough clue, I’m just trying to make the point that when it come to the election: don’t believe the hype.