Re: 'Of Thee I Sing': The Irony Found in the Title of Obama's New Children's Book

DOH!

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
Peter Chattaway
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 11:10 PM
To: Daniel Amos off-topic listserver
Subject: [DADL-OT] 'Of Thee I Sing': The Irony Found in the Title of Obama's New 
Children's Book

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jdunetz/2010/11/16/of-thee-i-sing-the-irony-found-in-the-title-of-obamas-new-childrens-book/

by Jeff Dunetz

As I watched my favorite morning news show today, an item came up which caused me 
to execute a perfect Danny Thomas "spit-take."  Today is the publication date for 
President Obama's new children's book billed as "a moving tribute to thirteen 
groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped our nation."   The 
content of the book didn't cause my reaction, nor was it that what Obama would 
describe as the "ideals that have shaped our nation," would probably be 
unrecognizable to our founding fathers.  The publication of the President's book 
made me angry but it had nothing to do with the President's progressive politics 
and everything to do with the title of his book; Of Thee I Sing.

There is only one true Of Thee I Sing, a musical that first appeared on Broadway 
almost seventy years ago and (in my humble opinion) is one of the most biting 
political satires ever written. In fact, Of Thee I Sing was the first successful 
American musical with a consistently satiric tone.  The writers and the cast were 
unsure of what the public's reception would be, prompting one of the writers of 
the book, George S. Kaufman, to quip "Satire is what closes on Saturday night."

Written at the beginning of the great depression, Of Thee I Sing lampoons a 
political system too tied up in personalities and silly little issues to fix the 
country's economy. The creative team behind the musical was a Broadway All-Star 
team.  The book was written by George S. Kaufman (You Can't Take it With You) and 
Morrie Ryskind. The team's previous collaboration was Animal Crackers, a Broadway 
musical written for the Marx Brothers (Ryskind went on to write many of the Marx 
Brothers movies). Music and lyrics were written by George and Ira Gershwin. 
George Gershwin was perhaps America's greatest composer, writing everything from 
musicals, to opera, to classical music and ballet.   Ira Gershwin is one of the 
American musical's greatest lyricists, who wrote for both stage and screen 
(including the original A Star is Born).

Of Thee I Sing was the first musical ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. 
Unfortunately though the score is an essential part of the play, George Gershwin 
was was not recognized by the Pulitzer committee.

The play tells the story of presidential candidate John P. Wintergreen," he's the 
man the people choose, loves the Irish and the Jews." For Vice President the 
choice is Alexander Throttlebottom, who throughout the play keeps trying to get 
into meetings and rallies, but gets thrown out because no one knows who he is.

Thanks to political bosses Louis Lippman and Francis X. Gilhooley, newspaper 
magnate Matthew Arnold Fulton, Senators Carver Jones and Robert E. Lyons - 
Wintergreen's chosen platform was the politically safe "love platform."  The party 
bosses also decide that Wintergreen should get married, so they hold a beauty 
pageant to select a bride for him. The winner is the sultry southern belle Diana 
Deveraux.

Unfortunately the candidate throws a wrench into the plans when he falls in love 
with the all-American Mary Turner whose major qualification is, well, "some girls 
can make a pie made up of prunes and quinces, some make an oyster fry others are 
good at blintzes, some lovely girls have done wonders with turkey stuffings but I 
have found the one who could really make corn muffins."

Wintergreen and his Mary win the election but immediately after the 
inauguration/wedding, Ms. Deveraux shows up to tell her story of winning the 
contest and being jilted by the new President. Thankfully the Court decides that 
"corn muffins are more important."

Of Thee I Sing is merciless in the way it attacks all American institutions, the 
nine members of the Supreme Court care more about politics than justice, the 
Senators care more about petty local politics than doing their jobs, and the 
political operatives don't give a rat's ass about what the country needs. They 
only care about public opinion and maintaining power.

Some things never change.

The least sympathetic character is the French Ambassador, even back then (as Al 
Bundy once said) everyone hated the French.  The Ambassador escalates the Diana 
Deveraux scandal, bursting into the White House demanding retribution for the 
affront to France.  It seems that the sultry Deveraux is "the illegitimate 
daughter of an illegitimate son of an illegitimate nephew of Napoleon."

France is not happy, so to placate the French, the political operatives decide to 
have the President impeached. But just as the Senate is going through its roll 
call, in bursts the First Lady who announces she's expecting.  Since no expecting 
President has ever been impeached the impeachment is called off.

And what of Ms Deveraux? Vice-President Throttlebottom reminds us, when the 
President is not able to fulfill his duty, that obligation is taken over by the 
Vice-President.

In the end everyone is happy, the President has his Mary (and corn muffins.

Of Thee I Sing is a special play because it really connected with the mood of 
America during the first part of the depression.  There wasn't so much a feeling 
of a mistrust of government institutions, as a  feeling that our government was 
run by a bunch of well-meaning fools who didn't quite know what they were doing. 
Over and above the great music, comedy and biting satire, the element that worked 
best was a sense of optimism, a feeling that however bad things got eventually 
things would turn out fine.

That optimism is uniquely American.

Two years after Of Thee I Sing opened the same exact all-star team of producers, 
writers, actors, etc. wrote a sequel called Let Them Eat Cake, which failed 
because was it was much darker and more pessimistic than the original.

Of Thee I Sing was revived a few times, a planned movie version starring the Marx 
Brothers never came together (thank God),  there was even a dreadful TV version 
starring Carrol O' Conner, but it was  never brought back at the right time.  This 
classic of American theater works best during a time when the country is in 
economic and political distress, at a time when the country looks for 
entertainment poking fun at what they are going through while understanding that 
as  as bad as things get,  in the end everything will be just fine.

Sorry Mr. President, nothing personal really but you can write a thousand books, 
but you could never be in touch with the American people enough to equal the real 
Of Thee I Sing.


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