Pizza-chain mogul turned Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain cited the following as an inspirational quote from "a poet" at Friday night's Iowa Straw Poll debate:
"A poet once said, 'life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible, but it's never easy when there's so much on the line.'"
Just one problem, though: that's not from any poem, or even any poet - it's a line of lyrics from "The Power of One," a track recorded by Donna Summer as the theme song to "Pokemon: 2000."
To be fair, Cain is a grandfather; so there are likely a dozen perfectly-reasonable ways that he could've come by this particular song and internalized the lyrics. Still, sort of funny I guess. Do people remember that it was briefly treated as some kind of "big deal" for some reason that President Obama used the score to "The Patriot" as the accompaniment to his victory speech?
12 comments:
I would like to laugh and say this dude is a poke-fanboy. However, that still wouldn't be as bad as some of the legitimate claims that could be thrown at other candidates.
I don't get it, what's wrong with quoting the Pokemon lyrics? Just because it's a theme song to a kid's cartoon it doesn't mean it's devoid of any artistic value or that the quote holds any less true when you think about it.
The only problem I'd say is that that line isn't especially interesting on its own. It's not bad just not some amazing quote no matter the source.
Would be pretty awesome if he knew exactly where it came from when he said it though.
Was this something you found out on your own Bob?
I think that's kinda funny, but I think Pokemon: 2000 was obscure enough to where the majority of the audience, myself included, wouldn't know where it came from.
The line from that debate I found even funnier was when one of the candidates adapted and mangled Stan Lee's "with great power, there must also come great responsibility" line from Amazing Fantasy #15. I forget who said it and how he mangled it, but it was completely hilarious. You should look it up.
Pokemon's a pretty big deal in gaming though, arguably the biggest right now. So it's a little crazy, but not quite as crazy as it may appear.
@Antonio Black This story has been making the rounds. There was an article on Destructoid about it a day or so ago.
http://www.destructoid.com/presidential-hopeful-quotes-pokemon-theme-song-208731.phtml
If I were to guess I'd say he may have walked by a TV while his grandkids were watching the show and that line got stuck in his head but he no longer remembers where he heard it. That happens to me sometimes.
Must... tell... EVERYONE about this!
Pokemon in politics?
Congratulations, Nintendo. You've not infected our government with your earwigs of gaming memes.
You really want our money, don't you?
I am still waiting for Bob's prediction of MSNBC using the phrase "The candidate blue shelled his opponent in the polls today..." (Or was it extra credits that said it, I can't remember.) (btw how do you edit a post without deleting and re-posting)
Quite helpful material, thank you for this post.
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