Conservatives Find Selves Shocked to Realize They Liked Obama’s Speech

On Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, President Obama made a case for national optimism. In quintessential Obama fashion, the speech was realistic about the problems (economic, racial, political) that the United States faces but gung-ho about the country's capacity to make collective progress in spite of them. It was a reassurance, in troubled times, that most of our fellow citizens actually do share our beliefs on things like honesty, tolerance, not taking shortcuts, and not being ill-informed and insane. It was uplifting, and not particularly partisan. And a lot of conservative pundits who have not exactly been happy with the past eight years found, especially when compared to the kind of things the ostensibly conservative candidate in this election has been saying, that they liked it.

Blogger Erick Erickson: