Turns out my old friend
Thirsty McWormwood was not a fan of the Democrat's Denver
acceptance speech. He writes:
Well, Mr. Purple America sure got blue.
Barack Obama became a superstar in 2004 because he gave the
best, most memorable speech, hands down, of any Democrat at that
year's national convention. It was better than the others because
it was different from all of the others.
Most Democrats could barely contain their seething contempt for
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Several didn't try. Their speeches
became mean-spirited, repetitive and, worst of all, boring. Even to
Democrats.
Obama's was the only one that year that had any uplift. It was
the only one that tried to see a way out of the partisan deadlock
that the party had found itself in. The fact that he acknowledged
he was cutting against the grain -- that's "the audacity of hope,"
folks -- made it even better.
He was an optimist, but not a fool. We could like this guy.
That was then. In accepting his nomination, Obama gave a tedious
pile of liberal platitudes and talking points that were
indistinguishable from any of the other speeches given by other
Democrats during their Denver shindig. Cut out that biographical
details and there was nothing in that speech that could not have
come out of the mouth of Al Gore or John Kerry.
You have to expect this, to an extent. He is the nominee after
all and has to represent his party and its agenda. But the promise
of Barack Obama was always that he could transcend politics as
usual. Elect him and things will be different, we were lead to
believe.
There was no innovative thinking in last night's speech. All of
the problems of American boiled down to the fact that the
government just hasn't spent enough, regulated enough, or mandated
enough. "Now it is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to
provide every child a world class education." This means an "army
of new teachers" with higher salaries and more support. Gee, why
hasn't anyone thought of that before?
(As for higher standards and more accountability, well, he'll
"ask" for them, which ought to be enough...)
This was mixed in with cheap shots at his opponent, Sen. John
McCain: "John McCain likes to say he'll follow bin Laden to the
Gates of Hell -- but he won't even go to the cave where he lives."
Rhetoric like that can only be described as pathetic. It'll be a
crime if the media lets Obama get away with it.
Or there was the twisting of Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners"
comment about the economy -- for which he was summarily kicked out
of the McCain campaign -- to imply that McCain had somehow dissed
military families "who shoulder their burdens silently." Raw
partisanship like that was certainly not something you'd find in
his 2004 speech.
About the only thing that did carry over from 2004 was the airy
talk of destiny and moments in time and such. Which all seem to
center around... Barack Obama. "For 18 long months, you have stood
up and said enough of the politics of the past... Change happens
because the American people demand it... America, this is one of
those moments."
Obama has forgotten that one of the things that was appealing
about the guy who appeared in 2004 was that he was a scrappy
underdog. A guy who was not yet even in the U.S. senate but had the
"audacity" to dream big.
He's a different man now. He has gone from suggesting that yes,
we can unite to solve our problems to saying that if only we all
unite behind him, that will
solve all of our problems. All people of sound mind and goodwill
should find that attitude troubling.
topics:
Education, John McCain, Barack Obama, Military, Oil
