Friday, August 29, 2008

out of the park














Everybody's quoting Andrew Sullivan on this, because he nailed it:

It was a liberal speech, more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism. But it made the case for that liberalism - in the context of the decline of the American dream, and the rise of cynicism and the collapse of cultural unity. His ability to portray that liberalism as a patriotic, unifying, ennobling tradition makes him the most lethal and remarkable Democratic figure since John F Kennedy.

What he didn't do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again ... and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check.

Read the whole thing. Watch and read the speech. Incredible.

My favorite part:

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

3 comments:

crystal said...

I didn't see it, but I found the text of it and bookmarked it for tomorrow. The excerpts I saw in the news looked very inspiring - it's so good to have a candidate who isn't afraid to be idealistic :)

KcM said...

Game, set, and match, IMHO.

lullaby said...

One of my favorite parts was the bit about individual and mutual responsibility. I also liked "we are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country...keep us safe." shit, I could go on and on. That he talked about McCain loving this country. That we all put America first. That he talked to America as "America" like he was Ginsberg... oooh, maybe not exactly like that...