The Speech of the Obamassiah

I have to admit, I didn’t watch it. I took a nap instead, and couldn’t be bothered to wake up until the confetti was in the air, the fireworks were going off, the cheesy music was playing, and the angels were descending from on high.

It seems to have gotten mixed reviews. Power Line has an amusing minute-by-minute breakdown. Among the highlights:

(Read the breakdown, plus my commentary after the leap)

10:03 Obama’s intro tape begins. We’re told that his mother wanted young Barack to know what being an American means. We’re not told that she took him to Indonesia to find out.

10:04 His grandparents grew up in Kansas. That’s code for “I’m not a Muslim,” I guess. Otherwise, it’s difficult to understand why Obama keeps pointing this out.

10:05 Michelle Obama recalls wondering “Who names their kid Barack Obama.” Does Michelle Obama realize that parents don’t confer the surname?

10:07 Barack cleans up for Michelle. If your surname is Obama, you should be “Barry.” Now that this is clear, he can count on my vote.

10:08 The tape is covering Obama’s time in the state legislature. No legislative achievements are mentioned, but we learn that when he visited Southern Illinois he recognized the people because they were just like his grandparents. Actually, his grandparents were radicals living in Hawaii, but all ordinary white folk look alike.

10:09 The tape is over. No Indonesia, no Hawaii, no Harvard.

10:11 Now he’s applauding the crowd. I thought only European soccer players did this.

10:23 According to Obama, McCain voted with the Bush administration 90 percent of the time. The Dems have spent the entire convention shifting back and forth between 90 percent and 95 percent on this statistic. It’s meaningless in any case until a baseline is established by reference to, say, the percentage of time Obama voted with the administration. But it sounds good, or would if the Dems could get their story straight.

10:26 According to Obama, it’s not that John McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the country, it’s that he doesn’t know what’s going on. It seems unlikely that a candidate who has been attending town meetings on an almost daily basis for a year and half doesn’t know what’s going on in the country. Obama is setting a low bar for McCain next week.

10:29 We’re back to grandpa. He marched with General Patton. Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t give grandma a ride to her job at the bank in Hawaii.

10:30 Grandma, who had the lead role in raising Obama and who he once impugned for racism, is finally getting her due.

10:31 Obama cites ma, grandma, and grandpa to refute McCain’s charge that he’s a celebrity. But McCain didn’t say that ma, grandma, and grandpa were celebrities, he said that Obama was.

10:35 With respect to energy, it’s all about new sources. He disparages new drilling as a “stop-gap.” Now who is insensitive to what’s going on in the country?

10:40 He’s going to make sure there’s equal pay for equal work. He doesn’t mention that this has been the law of the land for virtually his entire lifetime. (The controversy here is over whether you have to complain about violations in a timely manner, as with every other law; the Dems are crusading to relieve plaintiffs of this obligation).

10:41 Obama is going to pay for all of his domestic promises by, you guessed it, closing tax loopholes and streamlining government. He’ll cut (unspecified) wasteful programs, don’t you see. Can I get my money back?

10:43 Here’s the obligatory salute to individual responsibility. This is designed to show that Obama isn’t like other Democrats. Never mind that Democrats have been talking up individual responsibility for decades to show they are not like other Democrats. I guess their insincerity is so apparent that no one remembers.

10:45 “We must take out Osama bin Laden if we have him in our sites.” Who said Obama doesn’t grasp national security issues?

10:46 He accuses McCain of not being willing to follow bin Laden into the cave where he lives. If Obama loses the election, let’s hope he gives McCain the address of that cave.

10:47 Obama is setting a low bar for McCain next week.

10:48 Obama says he’s the one who will deter Iran. You remember Iran – that tiny country we don’t have to worry about.

10:49 Obama is also the one to deter Russia. You remember Russia – the country Obama was slow to denounce after it attacked Georgia.

10:50 Obama looks forward to debating McCain. . .as soon as he’s done turning down opportunities to do so.

10:51 Obama is not going to question McCain’s patriotism. That’s big of him. But he’s just accused McCain of being unwilling to go after bin Laden.

10:52 Obama will stipulate that both he and McCain love America. In fact, “we all put our country first.” Obama is being amazingly defensive here. Then again, McCain spent six years in a Vietnamese prison for his country. Obama spent 20 years being mentored spiritually by the rabid anti-American Jeremiah Wright and is friends with Chicago’s first couple of domestic terrorism. In these circumstances, I’d try for that same stipulation.

10:53 He’s getting even more defensive now, as he raises the issues of abortions and guns. His tactic is to call for “unity” and “common ground” on the issues where he’s weakest. Can we have some common ground on taxes? Like don’t raise mine?

10:54 Obama just knows that the Republicans are going to try to make this “big election be about small issues.” Like his fitness for the presidency.

10:55 Now he’s recalling the people he claims to have met on the campaign trail. This isn’t bad material, but the speech is getting long. Has he kept his audience for the grand finale?

11:00 Obama is in full preacher mode now. He speaks admiringly of King who, unlike Obama tonight, spoke without anger. Yet it was Jeremiah Wright, not King, who brought Obama to Christ.

11:03 The music in this setting has a creepy, epic quality to it. When do the chariot races start?

11:04 One more bow for the Obama couple and the Biden couple before they ascend to the heavens.

I am surprised that Obama decided to take it to McCain in his speech. Normally, that is something for the rest of the convention (particularly for the vice presidential nominee). For a guy that talks a lot about transcending politics, The One (in the replay I later begrudgingly watched) came across as quite shrill and angry, which gives a shocking and sharp contrast to McCain’s gentlemanly congratulatory commercial that ran before and after the speech.

Once a nominee descends to that level, he can never get back up again, and Obama has made his entire campaign about the appearance of being above such things, not that McCain hasn’t largely brought him back to earth already in recent weeks.

His policy prescriptions were no different than what you would hear from any other liberal Democrat, and have been hearing from the Democratic Party for years. So much for change we can believe in.

The fireworks, confetti, and the weird music at the end gave the whole thing an almost silly feel, as if Obama had won the Super Bowl and was expecting to be given the Vince Lombardi Trophy by Roger Goodell, and then tell the camera that he was going to Disneyland.