Politics

John Boehner "Hell No You Can't" Video Mashup Making Waves

By Anne Landman

Right before the House voted to approve health reform legislation, Minority Leader John Boehner gave a final, impassioned speech in which he posed a rhetorical question to his colleagues, "Can you say it was done openly, with transparency and accountability, without backroom deals and struck behind closed doors, hidden from the people?" When a string of Democratic House members shouted "Yes!," Boehner yelled back, "Hell no you can't!" Soon after that, Boehner's yell was immortalized in a clever mashup of the 2008 pro-Obama YouTube hit "Yes We Can" by the Black Eyed Pea's will.i.am. The original "Yes We Can" video set to music Obama's campaign speech featuring the phrase, "Yes We Can." In the new mashup, Boehner repeatedly interrupts Obama's "Yes We Can" speech with his harsh yell of "Hell no you can't!" The soothing and melodic guitar in the piece only serves to make Boehner's yell sound harsher. The mashup video has gotten over 445,000 views in the last six days, and prompted an opinion piece from the conservative media outlet FoxNews.com which said Republicans are close to "destroying their brand" and desperately need a new, more positive marketing spin, or else "the Republicans will be in the wilderness for a very long time."

Full post as published by PR Watch on March 30, 2010 (boomark / email).