“Keep the Change” by Hank Williams Jr. (audio only)

Can you dig it? OK – it may not be “Ol’ Man River,” but there’s a fine spirit to it. You can hear it via a download on his website or currently on YouTube.

Hank Williams Jr. parted company recently with ESPN over his comment during a TV interview that John Boehner meeting with Barack Obama on the golf course was “like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu.” Invoking the “Hitler” word is pretty much always a mistake in American politics, but Hank is a singer, after all, and he was responding to the subject of politics brought up to him by the folks on the “Fox and Friends” show, when he was there to talk about the new Hank Williams Sr. album. I do understand the analogy; he’s making a point that reflects how a lot of people on the conservative side of things have felt while watching the goings-on in Washington. The point is that there seems to have been an inability among many in the Republican establishment to appreciate where Barack Obama is coming from, long after the rest of us have understood it. He is not going to come around and do genuinely bipartisan things, and triangulate like Clinton did, or anything like that. He’s a dedicated ideologue, and if he goes out fighting for policies that the American people resoundingly reject, then that’s how he’ll go out, and he’ll use every last executive order to try and transform America into what he wants it to be versus what it is. Hence Hank’s shining poetic riposte: You can keep the change. There’s a certain mystification among people out there when Republican leaders are seen making nice with Obama like he’s actually going to be the pragmatic, post-partisan president that David Brooks still longs to take to the prom. Some people, like Hank Jr., realize that Obama-ism just needs to be defeated. Actually, it’s not just some people anymore. It’s most people. And therein lies the 2012 election.

The question that was asked of Hank Williams Jr. which led to his comment about golfing was “Which GOP candidate do you favor?” His choice was Herman Cain, which is reflective of the same groundswell amongst Americans in general against career politicians. If ever there was a chance for someone with “no experience” (although Cain has plenty of executive experience) to win the presidency it is this time. (The last non-politician to win the presidency was Dwight D. Eisenhower; he wasn’t so bad with hindsight, was he?)

And there’s another point. One of the verses of Hank’s new song goes like this:

So Fox & friends
Wanna put me down
Ask for my opinion
Then twist it all around
Supposed to be talkin’ about my father’s new CD
Well two can play that “Gotcha’ Game” just wait and see
Don’t tread on me

Although the rest of the media picked up on it and amplified it, it was how Hank Jr. was dealt with by the Fox & Friends crew that started the trouble. This idea that Fox is the “conservative network” is one that a lot of people would question too, and Hank is hitting on it here. If power corrupts, then maybe media liberalizes. Of-course Fox doesn’t claim to set out to be the “conservative” network, but rather a more “fair and balanced” one. The theme, pushed by the rest of the media, that Fox is in fact a conservative network through and through is one that moves the goalposts. The personalities on Fox News do not represent conservatism in America. They represent a milder alternative to the more blatantly liberal anchors and talking heads in the rest of the media, but that’s it. It’s about time this point was made loud and clear, and Hank Jr.’s song is laudable for doing so.

Related Posts:

• Dreaming with Tears in My Eyes
• The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams

From section: Commentary, Politics /