On the Sarah Palin post, Wally said he wanted to know what I thought about Barack Obama’s speech last night. Well, here’s PART of what I have to say about it in my column coming up Sunday:
Barack Obama was the Democrat who made it abundantly, eloquently clear that he was not running in order to “fight” against his fellow Americans. So all week, I looked forward to his acceptance speech, and when it came I was… disappointed.
Maybe I had built it up too much in my mind, depended too much on it to wash away the bad taste of all those boilerplate party speeches I had heard. He said many of the right things. He said “Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past,” but as for most of it — well, read David Broder’s speech on the facing page.
When he said “part of what has been lost these past eight years… is our sense of common purpose,” I thought, yes, but it’s been happening a lot more than eight years, and you know that. But he said it that because of his audience. That’s what made the speech flat, by Obama standards. He had to avoid offending the kind of people who love the bitter politics that he had been running against.
Don’t just go by me; be sure to read the Broder column I mention above (it’s embargoed until Sunday). Frankly, I was a little worried that I was the only one (other than David Brooks) left flat by the speech, until I saw what Broder had written.
But don’t just go by him, either. What did y’all think?
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It was a great speech full of passion and common sense. Finally the Dems started firing back at the wrinkly, white-haired dude. Seriously, the last 8 years under Bush have been an excruciating experience to live through and Obama hit that theme hard. Further, he linked McCain to Bush quite nicely by pointing out that McCain has agreed with Bush over 90% of the time. Little evidence McCain will change direction. His foreign policy may even be worse, given his hawkish rheotoric that is even more outrageous than Bush. Obama delivered a really eloquent speech that had me tearing up at times. The Dems should be proud and America grateful to have this man lead us out of the horrors of the Bush years.
You can’t forget that, first and foremost, it was a political speech. And not just any political speech – it was a historic speech delivered at political convention, accepting the Democratic nomination for President. Obama is a great orator, and is capable of more impassioned rhetoric, but for a political speech, delivered at this moment in time, I thought it was brilliant.
Lots of vague promises to spend over a TRILLION DOLLARS on new programs, to be paid for with “taxes on the rich” and “streamlining government”, by a man with absolutely no experience running any business.
He couldn’t even make living practicing law, until the Daley machine picked him up and put him on retainer for $8,000.00 a month.
Any highly-skilled professional, any propert owner, landlord, gun owner, anyone with a private retirement plan, should be very afraid of this man.
Mr. Warthen just hit the hat trick this week.
First he invents an Obama Iraq policy conflict that NO ONE ELSE IN THE FREE WORLD SAW.
Second, The State lead editorial one day this week is on the IMPORTANT concept of the, I kid you not, Democratic Party delegate rules!
Now, he thinks Obama is “disappointing”.
Mr. Warthen, you need to drop the facade, no one believes you anymore. Just come on out and endorse your hero, John McSame.
You’ll be a lot more intellectually honest. I know, I know, that’s not your strength.
PS My apologies, Mr. Warthen. You didn’t hit a triple this week, it was a home run.
I forgot your fourth bagger, the ridiculing of Congressman Clyburn without you so much as lifting a finger to dial his office to ask about his security detail. I’m still waiting for your apology and crow pot pie over that one…
I’ll look for your fifth base hit tomorrow, Mr. Warthen. I know you’ve got in your John McSame bones. Don’t disappoint us, Mr. Warthen.
Thanks to bud and Claudia for addressing the question at hand… I wonder what happened to Wally, who requested the topic?
I didn’t watch Obama’s speech last night; I was watching the game last night, as sad as the offensive team was in the first half.
What struck me about Obama was during the primary when he said he didn’t want to be the leader of Blue States or Red States, but be the leader of America!
I am looking for that leader that will work with both parties. It is a current sad state of affairs in Washington with both parties sitting with their thumbs stuck up their …
McCain has worked with Democrats and because of that, has been labeled a communist and socialist by Limbaugh and Lee. Both Rush and Muller say “they are right and you are wrong”. If you disagree with Limbaugh or Muller, they resort to childish tactics of name calling, labeling you as a socialist or communist.
I want a government that works and doesn’t sit on their ass. Lindsey Graham has demostrated cooperation.
Jim DeMint is SC GOP Chairman, Katon Dawson’s poodle!
Ralph Hightower is off in fantasy land.
Rush Limbaugh never called John McCain a socialist nor a communist.
Lee Muller never called John McCain a socialist nor a communist.
I doubt Ralph Hightower ever heard any sane person say such a thing. But it sure keeps his mind off reality. The reality is that John McCain, like President Bush, tried to reach out to Democrats and compromise, and each time he was taken for a sucker by those lying skunks.
Many Democrats are socialists. Some are communists, or like Obama, have a lot of communist pals. Over 50 Democrats in Congress are members of various organizations which call themselves “socialist”. That makes them untrustworthy for America.
What an awesome speech! Even Obama’s detractors on Fox found the speech spellbinding and powerful. I know that conservatives would like to paint him as a tax-and-spend, big-government liberal. But which party is responsible today for our huge deficit, bloated military establishment, and impossible foreign-policy commitments? I am waiting for Bush to invade Russia and Iran next!
We need a president who will be parsimonious in his use of American lives to further the foreign-policy interests of big oil and the truly lunatic fundamentalist right-wing religious fringe in this country!
What speech?
The news forgot about it in the news coup of the Sarah Palin announcement.
Did you notice that she can speak without hesitation on every subject, without having to read a speech written by someone else, like poor old Obama?
Obama is not even a US citizen. He will be off the ticket, with Biden and Hillary running by October.
Ok, Spaceman, I’ll bite. What’s your source on “over 50 Democrats in Congress are members of organizations which call themselves Socialist?
Now, Spaceman, don’t come back with something your Freeper buddies made up or your speciality, “Protocols of the Elders of Obama”….
I hate to do this to you folks but the below article from The State Aug. 3lst says it better than anything I have read or heard about this so-called speech by Obama.
Posted on Sun, Aug. 31, 2008
Obama speech a disappointment
By DAVID S. BRODER
The Washington Post
DENVER — The Democrats had themselves a successful convention — at the price of appearing quite conventional.
The delegates left here happy and enthused, believing that the divisive nomination fight was finally behind them. But their star, Barack Obama, on the climactic night of the conclave, gave an acceptance speech that was no match for the keynote address he delivered at the 2004 convention in Boston. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, introducing his colleague again here, said that first one “changed politics in America.”
That is hardly an exaggeration. People were talking about the 2004 speech — with its powerful evocation of a national unity far beyond any partisan differences — for weeks. I long ago lost count of the number of Obama volunteers who said they had signed up to support him after watching that address.
No one is likely to argue that the speech here “changed politics in America.” His jibes at John McCain and George Bush were standard-issue Democratic fare and his recital of a long list of domestic promises could have been delivered by any Democratic nominee from Walter Mondale to John Kerry.
There was no theme music to the speech and really no phrase or sentence that is likely to linger in the memory of any listener. The thing I never expected did in fact occur: Al Gore, the famously wooden former vice president, gave a more lively and convincing speech than Obama did.
If this were just an off night by a speaker we know can soar, it would be no more than a blip on the screen. Obama picked a bad night to be ordinary, given the huge crowd that filled the Denver Broncos stadium and the elaborate Grecian setting constructed for his performance.
But John McCain is hardly a major threat as a speaker, so what’s the difference?
Here’s why I think it matters. One of the major questions about Obama, of whom so little is known, is whether he is really serious about challenging the partisan gridlock in Washington or whether his election would simply bring on the regular wish list of liberal policies.
His Boston speech — and many others early in this campaign — suggested that he was sincere in wanting to tamp down partisanship and would be creative enough to see the need for enlisting bright people from both parties in confronting the nation’s problems.
But the Denver speech, like many others he has given recently, subordinated any talk of fundamental systemic change to a checklist of traditional Democratic programs.
Obama’s disappointing speech also reflected what I had thought was the one conspicuous failure of the convention program — the missed opportunity to introduce the country to others in the younger generation of Democrats than just Obama and his dazzling wife, Michelle.
The convention hall was full of bright, attractive men and women serving as governors or mayors or in other posts. Obama knows many of them from his campaign travels, and he gave the keynote spot to one of them, Virginia’s Mark Warner.
But the prime-time spots on the convention program went to Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Joe Biden, the vice presidential candidate. All are comfortably familiar figures to members of my generation, and all are part of a Washington that is hardly the favorite of most voters.
My guess is that an Obama administration, if there is one, would bring a lot of new faces and fresh ideas to the nation’s capital. But by giving such an ordinary speech and filling the TV screen with such familiar faces, Obama missed a chance to signal that such change is his mission.
He is not the first Democrat who has promised a new day. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, in different ways, tried to change Washington, and both wound up frustrated. The status quo forces — the interest groups, many in Congress, and parts of the media — all are powerful.
The only time a new president can really change Washington is when he makes it the central message of his campaign, as Ronald Reagan did in 1980.
Reagan’s skill was his rhetoric; hence the label “The Great Communicator.” After the 2004 Obama speech, Democrats thought they had found one of their own. It’s too bad that fellow didn’t make it to Denver.
Write to Mr. Broder at davidbroder@washpost.com.
Sorry, slugger, quoting from the ultimate member of the Inside the Beltway Royal Family reveals your intellectual shallowness.
38,000,000 watched Obama’s speech. You, Mr. Warthen and his several hundred strong cadre of “David Broder is God” cult members, and Karl Rove wingnuts were the only people who panned the speech.
Even Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and John Weaver, heavily credentialed members of the Repugnant Party, conceded its brilliance.
What would we do without your expert opinion Mr. Guero? You should have your own column in one of our leading newspapers in the country so that you might be financially rewarded for your opinion on all matters that pertain to current events. I feel sure that Mr. Broder is paid adequately for his opinion.
Cuervo,
I have been tracking communists in Congress since Ron Dellums used to have CPUSA literature on a table in his office, back in 1975.
I also captured snapshots of the web pages of the Democrat Socialist Alliance membership list, before they changed their embarassing name to the Progressive Caucus. The same stooges are still on the list, and they are members of various international socialist groups, like the Democratic Socialist Alliance.
Barney Frank is one of the ringleaders. Obama is a member. Hillary has spoken at two major communist events in Europe in the last 2 years… like old home week for her, back to when she worked as a legal intern for the CPUSA defending Black Panthers for killing a policeman.
Killing policemen seems to be a common link between Hillary and Obama.
Democratic Socialists of America
http://www.dsa.org
http://www.sovereignty.net/center/socialists.htm
Congressional Members of the
Progressive Caucus
Rep Earl Hilliard (AL-07)
Rep Eni Faleomavaega (AS-AL)
Rep Ed Pastor (AZ-02)
Rep Lynn C Woolsey (CA-06)
Rep George Miller (CA-07)
Rep Nancy Pelosi (CA-08)
Rep Fortney “Pete” Stark (CA-13)
Rep Henry A. Waxman (CA-29)
Rep Xavier Becerra (CA-30)
Rep Julian C. Dixon (CA-32)
Rep Esteban Edward Torres (CA-34)
Rep Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Rep George E. Brown (CA-42)
Rep Bob Filner (CA-50)
Rep Diane DeGette (CO-01)
Rep Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL)
Rep Corrine Brown (FL-03)
Rep Carrie P. Meek (FL-17)
Rep Alcee L. Hastings (FL-23)
Rep Cynthia A. McKinney (GA-04)
Rep John Lewis (GA-05)
Rep Neil Abercrombie (HI-01)
Rep Patsy Mink (HI-02)
Rep Jesse Jackson (IL-02)
Rep Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)
Rep Danny Davis (IL-07)
Rep Lane Evans (IL-17)
Rep Julia Carson (IN-10)
Rep John Olver (MA-01)
Rep Jim McGovern (MA-03)
Rep Barney Frank (MA-04)
Rep John Tierney (MA-06)
Rep David Bonior (MI-10)
Rep Lynn N. Rivers (MI-13)
Rep John Conyers (MI-14)
Rep Bennie G. Thompson (MS-02)
Rep Melvin L. Watt (NC-12)
Rep Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Rep Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)
Rep Major Owens (NY-11)
Rep Nydia M. Velazquez (NY-12)
Rep Charles Rangel (NY-15)
Rep Maurice Hinchey (NY-26)
Rep John LaFalce (NY-29)
Rep Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Rep Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Rep Louis Stokes (OH-11)
Rep Sherrod Brown (OH-13)
Rep Elizabeth Furse (OR-01)
Rep Peter A. DeFazio (OR-04)
Rep Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
Rep William Coyne (PA-14)
Rep Carlos A. Romero-Barcelo (PR-AL)
Rep Robert C. Scott (VA-03)
Rep Bernard Sanders (VT-AL)
Rep James A. McDermott (WA-07)
I knew it, I knew it! Spaceman has confirmed he sees commies under his bed!
Sorry, Spaceman, Bernie Sanders is the only DSA member in the Senate. The Progressive Caucus is supported by the DSA but they’re not the same organization. Obama has never been a member. Well, except maybe in your fevered brain.
And BTW, Stokes, McKinney, Brown, Bonior among othes on your list are not in Congress. You need to stop being so gullible, Spaceman, and not believe everything you read on your wingnut bloggers sites.
Space, you really need to update your Protocols of the Elders of Obama. You’re dated…
The facts of those other 50 socialist Democrats in the House don’t bother you, either.
That’s the litmus test – if you don’t mind socialists and communists in office, you might be one.
Hillary doesn’t have to be a member of DSA, now the Progressive Caucus, in order to be a socialist. Her former work for the Communist Party USA and her platform are her creditials.
Likewise John Kerry running an war protest group funded by the KGB – useful idot.
Stokes, McKinney, Brown, Bonior and others are on this list ripped from the DSA website before John Conyers removed it, and renamed the group “Progressive Caucus”.
I’ll post the current list of traitors.
http://www.cpc.lee.house.gov
2008 Caucus Member List
Co-Chairs
Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-6)
Hon. Barbara Lee (CA-9)
Vice Chairs
Hon. Diane Watson (CA-33)
Hon. Raul Grijalva (AZ-7)
Hon. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-5)
Hon. Hilda Solis (CA-32)
Hon. Mazie Hirono (HI-2)
Hon. Phil Hare (IL-17)
Senate Members
Hon. Bernie Sanders (VT)
House Members
Hon. Neil Abercrombie (HI-1)
Hon. Tammy Baldwin (WI-2)
Hon. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Hon. Madeleine Bordallo (GU-AL)
Hon. Robert Brady (PA-1)
Hon. Corrine Brown (FL-3)
Hon. Michael Capuano (MA-8)
Hon. Donna Christensen (VI-AL)
Hon. Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
Hon. William “Lacy” Clay (MO-1)
Hon. Steve Cohen (TN-9)
Hon. John Conyers (MI-14)
Hon. Elijah Cummings (MD-7)
Hon. Danny Davis (IL-7)
Hon. Peter DeFazio (OR-4)
Hon. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3)
Hon. Keith Ellison (MN-5)
Hon. Sam Farr (CA-17)
Hon. Chaka Fattah (PA-2)
Hon. Bob Filner (CA-51)
Hon. Barney Frank (MA-4)
Hon. Luis Gutierrez (IL-4)
Hon. John Hall (NY-19)
Hon. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Hon. Michael Honda (CA-15)
Hon. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-2)
Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)
Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Hon. Hank Johnson (GA-4)
Hon. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (OH-11)
Hon. Marcy Kaptur (OH-9)
Hon. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)
Hon. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Hon. John Lewis (GA-5)
Hon. David Loebsack (IA-2)
Hon. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Hon. Ed Markey (MA-7)
Hon. Jim McDermott (WA-7)
Hon. James McGovern (MA-3)
Hon. George Miller (CA-7)
Hon. Gwen Moore (WI-4)
Hon. Jerrold Nadler (NY-8)
Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)
Hon. John Olver (MA-1)
Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-4)
Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)
Hon. Laura Richardson (CA-37)
Hon. Bobby Rush (IL-1)
Hon. Linda Sanchez (CA-47)
Hon. Jan Schakowsky (IL-9)
Hon. Jose Serrano (NY-16)
Hon. Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Hon. Pete Stark (CA-13)
Hon. Bennie Thompson (MS-2)
Hon. John Tierney (MA-6)
Hon. Tom Udall (NM-3)
Hon. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
Hon. Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Hon. Mel Watt (NC-12)
Hon. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Hon. Peter Welch (VT-AL)
Hon. Robert Wexler (FL-19)
Aw, Spaceman, you’ve gone back to just making up sh*t.
Hillary never worked for the CPUSA except in the imaginations of crazed wingnuts like you.
I guess it’s too obvious to point out to you that the Caucus and the DSA are two SEPERATE organizations. I know that sort of logic will tax your brain, but try hard, Spaceman.
Hillary Clinton, while at Yale Law School, organized protests, demonstrations, and even an invasion of the courtroom and disruption of the trial of Black Panthers accused of killing one of their own.
Hillary’s work for the Panthers won her a summer internship at the Berkeley office of attorney Robert Treuhaft and his wife in 1972. A hardline Stalinist, Treuhaft had quit the Communist Party in 1958 only because it was losing members and no longer provided a good platform for his activism.
“Treuhaft is a man who dedicated his entire legal career to advancing the agenda of the Soviet Communist Party and the KGB,” notes historian Stephen Schwartz.
Hillary Rodham assisted on defense of yet another set of Black Panthers accused of killing the secretary for Ramparts magazine. It was in Berkeley that Hillary worked with other communists, including those hiding Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, Angela Davis and other terrorists.
The Progress Caucus is the same organization as the Democratic Socialists of America – same members – the group just changed its name and moved its web site.
DSA fit better with the international Democratic Socialist Alliance, a group of socialists committed to subverting elected governments from within.
There’s no doubt that he is now our President. I was really impressed with his speech. There are some dissenting voices from the Democrats after the Obama speech on the economy, which we bring to you from your payday loan source. Most of the problems that Democrats have are with the tax cuts that he is proposing that goes with the economic stimulus package that he’s putting together, and he’s planning to make a payday loan of sorts to the American Middle Class. Obama has been having quite the high times lately, and he has just been declared – officially – the winner of the November election, and he’s mulling a delay in the analog/digital transition.