Blunted On Reality: Wyclef Jean Runs For President

Normally, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the government of Haiti. From what I’ve read before, it’s a country that’s plagued with corruption, lies, and an arcane system of checks and balances that promotes those first two issues.

Plus, it’s the poorest country in this neck of the hemisphere.

Plus, it had a devastating earthquake earlier this year.

So those two things prompt me to give a rat’s ass, to the point where those aforementioned problems within the country’s government need to be address because there are thousands of lives depending on meaningful change.

The change that’s being offered?

Wyclef Jean.

Obviously, this wasn’t the type of change within Haiti’s government that I was hoping for.

I don’t know how many of you got an opportunity to hear Wyclef answer some very pointed questions on All Things Considered on NPR this afternoon, but they asked the very same concerns that I had when I first heard that Jean was considering a run for that country’s leadership role.

And Wyclef got an opportunity to answer some of those questions with the same compelling responses that you’d expect from someone’s who’s last job was leading a phony marching band in a Ritz cracker commercial.

How does a musician with no practical legislative experience lead a country out of crippling debt when he has his own financial issues to deal with, namely paying all of the back taxes he owes his current country? His answer? My accountants are handling the problem right now.

How does a musician with corruption problems of his own explain how he plans to address the corruption problems within Haiti? By hiring cabinet members that are outside of corruption, whatever that means.

In addressing some of those corruption concerns, Wyclef immediate began to deny the allegations in a weird third person narrative.

“The idea of Wyclef taking money to put in his pocket, that is a no….The idea of Wyclef being corrupted is a no.” he told NPR today.

Well then, that settles it!

Still, his motivation is questionable, particularly at this juncture. One would think that a man with a passion for his native country and a desire to lead it out of yet another in a long line of natural disasters would find time to be in that country more that just the one month that Jean has logged in Haiti since the earthquake last January.

There’s just something inherently wrong about this candidacy, and it reeks of the whim of a narcissist musician who likes the idea of being president more than he actually likes the idea of working to improving the country he’s campaigning for.
He’s provided no real plan on how to get Haiti out of its problems other than thinking that a president’s job is to fly around the world and get all of the missing pledge money that people donated after the tragedy.

How about starting with your own organization, ‘Clef?

Despite the vague answers and poorly executed campaign dialogue, Wyclef came across as a candidate who understands that none of the NPR listeners will have any impact on his plans in Haiti, regardless of how strongly they may disagree with him. He knows that he can carpetbag his way to the country’s youth and spin his celebrity to the point where they will blindly vote for his candidacy without fully understanding that his lack of experience and his own questionable financial background could have devastating implications on a country that needs real leadership instead of a figurehead.

The idea of Wyclef Jean being the next president of Haiti? That is a no.