The Magic Power Of Words

I read an interesting article by Arianna Huffington entitled Clinton, Obama And The Belief In The Magic Power Of Words http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/clinton-obama-and-the-be_b_88349.html
I happen to agree with this these sentiments whole heartedly, here are some excerpts:

Hillary Clinton's new favorite line of attack against Barack Obama is her charge that Obama is little more than a shallow speechifier -- he believes that words are all you need to lead. But if you look at how each of them uses words, you'll see that it's actually Clinton who believes that words are like a magic wand: you utter them and reality changes. Clinton's use of words is disturbingly reminiscent of the way the Bush administration has used words: just saying something is true is magically supposed to make it true. Call it Presto-change-o Politics. Obama never claims his words will somehow magically create change. Instead, he uses his words to ask the American people to demand change. It's why his constant invocation is "Yes we can" -- not "Yes I can.

The examples are so notorious they hardly bear repeating: "mission accomplished," "heckuva job," "last throes," the endless "turning the corner" in Iraq. They were all said with the arrogant belief that merely saying these words was all that was needed: reality would literally change to fit the rhetoric.

Now let's look at Hillary Clinton's rhetoric and what is says about the campaign she's run. It started with her absurd claim that her vote for the war was really a vote to send inspectors back in. The name of the bill? "The Joint Resolution To Authorize The Use Of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq." Saying it was about sending inspectors back in doesn't mean that it is true that it was about sending inspectors back in.

And then how about the endless spinning trying to diminish Obama victory after Obama victory? Here was Penn: "Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama." Mark Penn calling Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, and Colorado, among others, not "significant" does not make them insignificant.

Or Clinton's "35 years of experience." She has had a distinguished record of public service, but it's not in any way 35 years of government experience, unless you want to include her time at Yale Law school, or going door to door for George McGovern in Texas, or working at the Rose law firm in Arkansas as government experience. But her campaign seemed convinced that by repeating "35 years of experience" at every stop she would magically acquire that 35 years of experience.

So let's look at how Obama uses words. Contrary to Clinton's charges, Obama never claims his words will somehow magically create change. Instead, he uses his words to ask the American people to demand change. Very little change for the better happens in Washington unless it is demanded by the people. It's instructive that, back in New Hampshire, Clinton discounted the work Martin Luther King did in creating the political atmosphere that allowed LBJ to push though the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Which is why Obama's constant invocation is "Yes we can" -- not "Yes I can." Obama uses words to persuade, to mobilize and to get people to imagine that reality can be changed. And based on how his campaign has been run, on the ground, in state after state, it's clear that he knows changing reality is not done through magic -- it's done through hard work.

It is Clinton who uses words to deny reality, and expects them to magically change it. Haven't we had enough of that over the last seven years?