JOLLY DAYS

Obama's Convention Speech

The anticipation about Obama's principal strength, his rhetorical skills, on a large stage, was palpable. Could he rock a football stadium? Answer: not really and it doesn't matter. He simply needed to get through it and do okay. He did fine.

This was an aggregated speech; all the individual issues, from different advisors, put together so no segment of the voting public was ignored. It felt aggregated. As language, it was a lame effort. But again, that wasn't really what mattered.

So many of the issues touched upon were of real concern. To get the focus on the middle class. To try and do something about health care and deal a blow to divisiveness. It would be good to get stem cell research going. All the right subjects. Obama hit the nail on the head about the nonsense rhetoric of the Republicans: “the ownership society”. It means you are on your own Obama cogently stated.

Obama's attacks on McCain on the other hand were formulaic. Obama has set up an oldies vs the youngies distinction. Not useful to a politician — a dumb move. Democrats are told to use “old and tired” as modifiers when referring to McCain's policies and subtextually assault him as the old guy. Attacking McCain as Bush II is cynical and untrue. It more diminishes Obama than McCain. The future comes from the past and McCain knows it better than Obama.

Whether Obama's speech well expressed his central theme of unity is dubious. The etiology: Obama is a narcissist who was when younger, as he stated, confused about his racial identity. David Brooks said yesterday that Obama has been talking about unity from his earliest speeches. To Brooks, this indicated a deep commitment to the “idea”. In fact, Obama is simply projecting, as narcissists always do, his interior need; Obama wants to unify his self-conception. There have been few indications that Obama is capable of unifying anything in the public sphere. He is simply presenting himself and saying if you support me then we are unified as a people. A confusion of self with planet earth.

McCain himself is of great concern. McCain gets it about the nature of the bad players. He knew, right off, that Putin was a “KGB thug” when everyone else was indifferent, or like Bush, feeling Putin's soul. McCain knew the surge was a good idea when Obama was arguing against it. That is, what will make it possible for us to leave Iraq with some sense of order was McCain's grasp of the situation. Obama would have left us internationally humiliated and vulnerable to every thug who saw their chance.

But we aren't sure what McCain is going to do about that clarity. It isn't McCain's judgment, as it is with Obama, but McCain's temperament that concerns you. How hair-trigger is McCain? Is everything going to be main force? In addition, the Supreme Court is becoming an advocacy forum and the judges need to be more centrist. Only Obama would nominate such justices. There are so many reasons you would want Obama as president, except for the man himself, who is really a cipher.

Finally, the Democrats should consult with the Chinese about how to run a fireworks display.