WORLD NEWS TRUST: Dem Convention -- Day 4: The Mile-High Milestone (Mary Lyon)

Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust

A signature Stevie Wonder hit struck the perfect introductory note for this historic evening: “Signed Sealed and Delivered.” And we were. So was Barack Obama. It struck me while watching everybody boogeying to the evening’s overture that it was a great choice because it was everybody’s music, wrought by a distinguished black R&B star whose catchy hits are a key part of any Baby Boomer’s favorite oldies collection -- regardless of their skin color. And it sure did fit -- an anthem to a newly reunited Democratic party.

The majesty of the night when Barack Obama became the first African American to accept a major party’s nomination for President of the United States overtook all the sneering about Greek columns and set design that I suspect originated from deep within the RNC and had trickled out to every anchor, roving reporter and pundit in Denver. The critiques had clickety-clacked away all day like those plastic teeth that chatter across the tabletop after you’ve wound them up and let them go. By the end, however, nobody cared about what subliminal image of alleged “imperiousness” would be telegraphed by the prop columns in the background or the CNN-initiated (not the Obama campaign’s) Sky-cam overhead. All those who packed the Invesco Field cared about, all that stirred their hearts and electrified their minds, was the soaring rhetoric, the clearly-delineated policy proposals, the inspirational recollections, and the rather elegant but lethal jabs at the George Bush legacy and its favorite son, John McCain.

Obama’s skewering of McCain reminded me of the best of the Olympic-class divers we saw in Beijing the week before. The highest scores went to those who speared straight down into the pool and disappeared with a minimum of residual splash. There would be no challenges to John McCain’s patriotism here, we were told, because the stakes are too high for the same old partisan playbook, because “patriotism has no party,” and because our troops of many colors are fighting, bleeding, and dying together not so much in service to red or blue states but to the United States.

This was a speech that was long in coming, but the attacks weren’t mounted with blunt-force trauma. More like a stiletto. And I LOVED the stilettos -- as stylish as anything Manolo Blahnik or Jimmy Choo ever came up with. There were oodles of them, and all the best sore spots were skewered by them.

Want to talk about character? Judgment? Temperament? For the first time Obama broached, rather delicately, the subject of his rival’s hair-trigger temper -- something only whispered about in polite Senatorial company, or speculated about openly only in the blogosphere. Bless my soul but the Phil Gramm verbal atrocities were brought up, too. We’re a nation of whiners? Hardly, according to Obama’s recollections of the salt-of-the-earth Americans he met who were facing personal, family, and/or economic adversity with increasing desperation and yet also with courage and nobility.

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http://www.worldnewstrust.com/wnt-reports/commentary/dem-convention-day-4-the-mile-high-milestone-mary-lyon.html

What a night, 'eh?

:toast:

I missed it all. I had to teach my web weenie class. Looking at excerpts just ain't the same. :-(

And I'm sure it'll be online - Obama's website maybe? It's worth sitting back and savoring.

It'll go down in history as one of the landmark speeches of our era, for certain!

speech need not be overshadowed here, too. Whoever McCain picks will be a loser.