OK, I'm a bit behind, but thanks to the glories of DVR (digital video recorders) I'm slowly getting back on track and . . . bored as ever.
Tuesday was Barack Obama's much-anticipated keynote speech to the DNC. I have a few reactions:
Speaking of life in the U.S.: "Votes will be counted most of the time." Voting inaccuracy accusations and bloodlust are getting really old. Someone should send that memo around the DNC. The Democratic lieutenants are seeming desperate. The speeches are cold, pedantic and lacking in creativity, if not occasionally (deceptively) rousing in rhetorical tone.
Speaking on (the longshot of) a Kerry White House: "faith will not be used as a wedge to divide us". I'm not sure what he meant. I wish he would have been more clear and pointed his finger more precisely with this quip.
"War should never be the first option" (paraphased). Uh, does the 18th option count as "not the first option"? Refer to UN Security Council Resolutions (in reverse chronological order) 1441, 1284, 1205, 1194, 1154, 1137, 1134, 1115, 1060, 1051, 979, 715, 707, 688, 687, 686, and 678. Is that sufficient rational patience?
"President Kerry will not hesitate to use military force to keep America safe." OK, so how does this make Kerry uniquely positioned to be the next President?
"If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of a attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties." St. Senator Obama, please cite the evidence of any Arab-American family being rounded up as a family.
"I am my brother's keeper." OK, so how does that differ from Republican-based foreign policy the last, say, 84 years?
"There's not a liberal America or a conservative America but a United States of America." Are we supposed to want to be robots, all cut from the same political page? I thought our Founders' America was a place where political discourse--liberal/conservative, Federalist/Anti-Federalist--flourished.
Is Sen. Obama a good public speaker? Sure. Does it end there? Sure.
Where are the original ideas that are supposed to define the party and, chiefly, Kerry so that election day is a success for the Democratic Party? I don't see them, which is why I am confident that the President has nothing to worry about . . . except another 9/11.
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3 comments:
More than anything else, this election (like so many arguments I've had with the opposition) seems to revolve around war: when, where, why?
In almost all cases, I get hit with the unbelievable assertion that we just didn't wait long enough to invade Iraq (even Clinton thought this way).
What? Something must operate differently in their mind, so that time-space, as it curves around itself, warps 12 years into 12 months.
Or, maybe the reasonable Left needs time for the issue to be pressing for them personally. Dunno. But I experience a disconnect in these conversations right from the start.
"President Kerry will not hesitate to use military force to keep America safe." OK, so how does this make Kerry uniquely positioned to be the next President?
-- I think the point of the line was to reassure voters that Kerry will also not hesitate. It wasn't to differentiate him from Bush.
It's the conditions that surround the statement that you quote that are the differentiation factor between Kerry and Bush.
See the post on the Kerry Doctrine. Robert Kagan interprets this differentiation tactic.
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