"We Are The Ones That They Have Been Waiting in Line For"

After listening to Barack Obama, it's impossible for even the staunchest of Republicans to come away unimpressed by his oratorical gifts. When it comes to communicating with the masses, the man has simply "got it" (just like Bush... uh...not)... However, it's worth noting that all the "Obamaisms" that are now at the forefront of our political lexicon - "Yes, we can," "Change you can believe in," "We are the ones we've been waiting for" - went through many early versions before settling into their final form.

For example, "Yes, we can," originated as a customer service ad for K-Mart. Not wanting to be accused of plagiarism, Obama experimented with many other off-shoots of "Yes, we can": "Yes, we will," "Yes, we might," and "Maybe we can, maybe we can't" were all under consideration before Obama realized that K-Mart was going belly-up so who cares... Also, "Change you can believe in" began in earnest as "I believe you can change in that room down the hall."

But perhaps no Obamaism went through as many renditions as the storied "We are the ones we've been waiting for." Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I still don't know what the f&^* that means. I don't know about you, but anytime I've ever been with a group of people, we're usually waiting for someone else, not for those who are already there. Perhaps that's what they mean by "preaching to the choir..." At any rate, "We are the ones we've been waiting for" originally was written as "We are the world... and we've been waiting for Quincy Jones..." Then it was changed to "I am He as You are He as you are We and We are the ones we've been waiting for." But that seemed a little lengthy. The third stab produced this gem: "We are the ones that they've been waiting in line for." But none of these seemed as inspiring as "We are the ones we've been waiting for," and so it was - and the rest is history.

The long and sometimes torturous road to oratorical brilliance certainly has other precedents as well - after all, Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" began as "Scrambled Eggs." And no one cares much how Obama arrived at his genius. The important thing is that he indeed arrived.

Yes he did...