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Barack Speech Open Thread

by: elwood

Thu Aug 28, 2008 at 21:59:47 PM EDT


Stevie Wonder, Al Gore, Joe Biden - and Barney Smith before him.

This is an open thread.

More (Dean): From the speech:

"John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time.  Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than ninety percent of the time?  I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change."
Not only a marvelous quip, but if you replaced the word "McCain" with "Sununu," you have an equally accurate and equally damning statement.
elwood :: Barack Speech Open Thread
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It's bizarre watching the pundits (4.00 / 1)
I'm looking at the stage - and I don't see any Greek temple. Yet they ponder and pontificate about one.

That's why (4.00 / 2)
c-span is so great-totally different when you can just watch and listen without the chatter.

[ Parent ]
I heart CSPAN. (0.00 / 0)
no commercials, a true SPIN-FREE zone.

Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.

[ Parent ]
Unfortunately, the talking heads define the narrative. (0.00 / 0)
They, themselves, are news.

[ Parent ]
Looks like the inside of the oval office to me... (0.00 / 0)
The wooden window sills, the porticoes--- look like where I always saw Jeb Bartlett go out for his smokes.

Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.

[ Parent ]
This is NOT the speech I expected (happily) (4.00 / 5)
I figured an Inspiring Look Back with gratitude, yadda yadda.

Obama isn't going to wait for Biden to respond - he's going directly after Bush and McCain.


Wow. Wow. Wow. (4.00 / 5)
This certainly puts to bed whether Obama can go "toe to toe" with John McCain.

More of this forceful side, please!

Wonder if Sununu's fired now.


Again Elwood---- thank you, thank you! n/t (0.00 / 0)


Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.

From "Change" to "Progress" (4.00 / 5)
Here's what happened tonight.

Obama, as I have documented relentlessly, has always struggled with the paradox of unity and struggle.

He wanted to us to get over fighting so that we could win. And yes, many said, but you can't win without fighting.

No, said the Obamaites. We want change, and change comes through Unity. Not through partisan wrangling.

Change. The word made me cringe. No one is against change. It was meaningless. Change in what direction?

Obama tonight was not about Change.

Obama tonight was about Progress.

We are moving forward. We are unpausing the button. We will not turn back.

Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.



My emotions overfloweth today. (4.00 / 1)
I arrived at work today and my boss called me, I had a catch in my throat, she asked, "What's wrong?"  How can you explain that you spent most of the 30 minute ride to work weeping off and on listening to NPR.  I missed the Roll Call yesterday, so when I switched over to WBUR this morning when WEVO was doing some service, I happened to hear the audio of Massachussetts roll call yesterday.  It brought tears to my eyes, hearing Deval Patrick talk about being the state's first African American governor, hearing them proclaim the state as the first to sanction same-sex marriage.  Then I heard the interview with Congressman Joe Lewis, which just really broke me... to think of a man who has endured so much, who survived "whites only," and the church bombing, and Selma, and Birmingham, and lynchings, and murdered civil rights workers... for a man like that to see Barack Obama accept the nomination for the Presidency, 45 years to the day... thinking about that just touched me in a way that I couldn't have anticipated.

Tonight, I sat alone watching this...and I hung on every word.  I've taken notes and hope to come up with something more coherent that sums up this convention experience, not from Denver, but from the couch.  

But for tonight, let me just say, the American Dream is alive, and I'm looking ahead, to a place that I can't see, that better place around the bend.

Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.


I had to pull over to the side of the road (4.00 / 1)
When lewis in that piece started crying and said "I thought I had cried all my tears"

That right after noting that "A lot of us didn't make it to Washington"

I sat there for quite a bit and turned off the radio after the segment.  



[ Parent ]
Thank you (0.00 / 0)
for sharing that.  I'm so far removed from any of that history.  It seemed that Maura Liason had to finish the interview for him.  It's nice to know that so much connects us.

I'm so disappointed that my daughter fought going to sleep tonight and I missed his speech in Denver.  For some reason I thought that he would be introducing Obama...  I'll have to try and catch the video of it.

Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.


[ Parent ]
Damn, Sam. (4.00 / 2)
McCain and co. better get outta the way, there's more Mo here than they can stop with their weenie swiftboat antics.

And, Barney Smith is my new hero.

It's time for a change and I need a nap. Or is it the other way around?


"I need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith-Barney" (0.00 / 0)

For that man, who worked in the same factory as his father.  To hear 80,000 people chanting his name.  

And then, to see the sunset over Invesco Field.

Brilliant.

Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.


[ Parent ]
Damn, Sam (0.00 / 0)
Barney Smith is our Hero!

"I'm not smart enough to run the economy."

- John McCain (r) Arizona
Interview with the Keene Sentinel, November 7, 2007


[ Parent ]
Yes We Can---- not possible without NH (0.00 / 0)


Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.

McCain's Temperment (0.00 / 0)
It is when you make a point of someone that they aren't qualified for any reason, even the a dull one as expierence.  Be prepared to expect if the opponent has some ability that they will find one on you and exploit it.

John McCain for all he has done, opened himself up to the fact that he shows his temper from time to time.  will this temper show up in a moment of crisis and frustration and adversly effect this country, should we risk it?

"I'm not smart enough to run the economy."

- John McCain (r) Arizona
Interview with the Keene Sentinel, November 7, 2007


Not worried about his temper. (0.00 / 0)
What I'm worried about is "limited hang-out," subversive behavior and his connection to Gannon Technologies group which supplied the Secretary of State of Ohio with a proprietary computer operating system which uses imaging to manipulate documents.

[ Parent ]
But...but... POW! (4.00 / 1)
That's how Atrios has headlined the daily McCain excuse of "Maybe, but for five and a half years..."

They won't dare use it tomorrow.

I've been thinking someone should bring up McCain's temperament. Republican Senators think it disqualifies him. Maybe Howard Dean can, I thought.

No, it's our candidate - and that's cleaner.


[ Parent ]
"Dreams deferred" (4.00 / 3)
At the end, almost tossed off -- but a clear reference to the famous Langston Hughes poem.

Great speech.



Post "post-partisan" (4.00 / 2)
Not meaning, "Great - he's embracing partisanship." But he is not letting the blandness of post-partisan rhetoric constrain him. In any way.

There are political consultants all across this land who are having the vapours, worried that America might have seen "an angry black man." But America saw an angry man - and then a man.


Listening to the NPR call-in last night (0.00 / 0)
I was completely astonished at the number of "undecideds," leading toward McCain callers who kept saying that there was "no meat" to the speech; that he didn't give any specifics about how he was going to bring about this change he keeps talking about ad nauseum.  Really at 12:30 AM, with my husband sleeping in bed next to me, I was restraining myself from yelling at the clock radio.

What speech did these people watch?  Have they been so snowed in to thinking that he's all rhetoric and no substance that they couldn't hear the words coming out of his mouth last night?

Ugh... not a good way to fall asleep after such an emotional high.

And, someone from Iowa (who supports Obama) said it didn't matter that he didn't mention agriculture in response to a question from NPR dude.  I'll have to look at Dean's text of the speech, but I specifically remember him saying something about "farms that need saving?"

Again, what speech did these people watch???

Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.


Remember there are (4.00 / 1)
"screeners" manning the phones. They engage in a certain amount of manipulation. To whit--the number of "PUMA" type callers on shows was way higher than their representation. Either these people have more time than the rest of us to be on terminal "hold" or they're brought on to ignite "controversy".

From the unconscious misogyny around Hillary and Chelsea to the out and out propaganda of the Associated Press, the decay of the Fourth Estate is very, very worrisome to me.  


[ Parent ]
And also (0.00 / 0)
Committed GOPers who claim to be undecided, just to get through.

[ Parent ]
To be fair-- (0.00 / 0)
Republicans are right to be undecided.  They haven't been told whom to vote for yet.

[ Parent ]
Here's the part... (4.00 / 1)
And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things.  They could've heard words of anger and discord.  They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked.  That together, our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried.  "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.  We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back.  Not with so much work to be done.  Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for.  Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save.  Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.  America, we cannot turn back.  We cannot walk alone.  At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future.  Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

My friend this morning, who is an English teacher teaches the "I have a Dream" speech to her high school students at an alternative high school.  She commented on the brilliance of the "Now is the time..." refrains in Obama's speech but fell asleep before the end.

So, I read her the above passage this morning.  And, damnit, I cried again.  The words are so powerful.

Waking up on November 5th with no regrets.


[ Parent ]
Crib Notes of the Con Crawl (4.00 / 2)
Bresler and moi (with Kelly in spirit & cellie) did the Kerouac thing last night.

We started on Elm St. It was no nightmare, but I suck at phonebanking. It took me like 20 tries and two organizers to figure out that you don't need to dial 603.

By 8 we were at the Puritan with the ManchDems. It seems that my legend preceded me. Note to bloggers; Dems read BH. "You're JACK Mitchell" and I never knew if that was good or bad, that JACK part. Whatevs. It's time to work, let's go.
So, the Puritan had really yummy chicken nuggets and a guy who decided to show me the concealed handgun under his T-shirt. He asked, "What did you carry in Iraq?" I said, "M-16." He said, "I carry one of these." and pulled up his T, just enough.
The place was bumpin for how early it was. Not everyone was happy though. Suffice to say, I don't envy senior staffers that have to negotiate the ego minefields of political concubines.

Bresler the blur is poetry in motion. When he hits a gaggle, everyone's body language changes, smiles pop loose, followed by laughter and the room is a different place.

Next stop Change to Win watch party. Big ups to the hostess Kris, who will be forced to write a diary here on BH, if Bresler and me have anything to say about it. She has a precious Draft Obama story going back to late 2006.
Do you hear me Kris? MUST HAVE DIARY!

Then West to Bob Marley's House; oops, Barley House, for the big moment. Obama did ok. ;v)
The crowd filled the room and the place was stoked. After, people had this look like we had just come off the best ride at Canobie. You grasp for words, but it just don't do it justice. Thrilled is a very wide word. So in there somewhere was me and most of the folks at the Barley.

Finally, at the Burger King on 3A/93, I waited 10 minutes for a BK Fish with Cheese that burnt my mouth as I drove home to the hottie. She watched with my two girls. Barack saved my ass with that speech. All the time, gas money and the neglected stuff around the house, is now seen in a different light.

Yes We Can.
 

The giant finds its gait.


"So, the Puritan had really yummy chicken nuggets and a guy who decided to show me the concealed handgun under his T-shirt." (0.00 / 0)
Welcome to New Hampshire.

[ Parent ]
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