McCain's "Worst Speech" Panned by Pundits

September 5, 2008

John McCain's nomination speech was so flat, so disjointed, so utterly devoid of any vision or affirmative plan for the U.S. -- it's hard to say much about it, other than it sucked. That's basically what CNN's Jeffrey Toobin was driving at when he panned it in historic proportions on Thursday, declaring it the "worst speech by a nominee" since 1980. It was, Toobin added, a "shockingly bad," "boring," "theme-less" train wreck. (More after clip.)

Another pundit, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, said McCain's poor policy emphasis in the speech represented a missed opportunity:

Palin's Big Strikeout

September 3, 2008

Sarah Palin gave a riveting and devastating nomination speech on Wednesday night. She shared her inspiring story and brave family, while savaging and ridiculing the celebrated life story of Barack Obama, a fellow barrier-breaking candidate, with whithering attacks on his work as a community organizer, senator, and author. She misrepresented his record and simply lied about her own, claiming to oppose earmarks that she supported, and dissembling on her $1.5 billion tax hike and record of raising sales taxes by 25 percent in Wasilla. Reviewing the McCain Campaign's bullying, "unprofessional" onslaught against anyone who notes Palin's extreme positions and dishonest claims, Time's Joe Klein urged reporters to face facts:

I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God."

By all accounts, Palin faced a huge task in St Paul. She had to prove she was up to the job of commander in chief.

Old Cold War or New Energy Conflict?

September 2, 2008

It's now hard to remember that, when the Bush administration arrived in office in 2000, its hardcore members were all old Cold Warriors who hadn't given up the ghost. If the Soviet Union no longer existed, they were still quite intent on rolling back what was left of it, stripping off Russia's "near abroad," encircling it militarily, and linking various of its former Eastern European satellites and socialist republics to NATO, as well as further penetrating and, after 2001, deploying troops to the oil-rich former SSRs of Central Asia.

As Stephen Cohen wrote in a pathbreaking piece in the Nation, "The New American Cold War," back in 2006, even as the Bush administration began to claim that the U.S. had an overriding national interest in scores of nations around the planet (including Iraq and Iran), there was "a tacit… U.S. denial that Russia [had] any legitimate national interests outside its own territory, even in ethnically akin or contiguous former republics such as Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia." As had been true in the 1990s under the Clinton administration, the new administration was eager to kick a former superpower when it was down on its luck and just beginning to emerge from its era of "catastroika."

While George Bush looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and declared him a soulmate, his vice president and various neocon allies were spoiling for a fight. And this isn't exactly ancient history either. As David Bromwich pointed out recently in a canny piece at the Huffington Post, Cheney essentially threw down the gauntlet to Russia in a speech in Vilnius, Lithuania, in May 2006 in which he "threatened Russia with a new Cold War if Russia did not capitulate to American demands of cheap oil for Russia's pro-American neighbors."

Dome Denied to Gustav's Victims

September 2, 2008

Check out the massive padlock on the Superdome. That will tell you all you need to know about Hurricane Gustav and the federal government's carefully orchestrated response. The padlock, which looks roughly the size of a Frisbee, is set firmly around the doors. It articulates a message that would be clear to even a Bush or a Brownie: this storm will not be Katrina. By that I don't mean, "We've learned a lot in the last three years" or whatever talking points the White House is putting out.

The padlock makes clear that the public relations hurricane battle has been well engaged. There will be no photo ops of 30,000 people herded into a luxury stadium that magically morphs into a homeless shelter from hell. There will be no opening up the stadium to the poor and unwashed, not after spending $185 million bucks to rebuild the dome and not with the NFL season right around the corner. There will be no one left behind, even if it means putting people on buses, taking them hundreds of miles away and not even telling them the destination. And, more than anything else, the padlock in all of its metallic, glistening glory, is a self-indictment. It is an admission that despite what we were told three years ago, a stadium isn't really shelter; that the act of forcing people at gunpoint into the dome was a criminal act; and that believing any stadium could have redeeming social value as an emergency evacuation center, is a lie.

The padlock on the Superdome prevents any more ugly backdrops for When the Levees Broke II, and preserves the pristine field for Drew Brees, Reggie Bush and the rest of the New Orleans Saints. But it also raises more questions than answers: if people aren't in the dome, then where are they?

My Interview With John Legend

September 1, 2008

Grammy-winning soul singer John Legend was an omnipresent figure during last week's Democratic National Convention. After performing his new anthem, "Are You Out There," on the convention's first night, Legend fielded interviews from CNN, MSNBC and a gaggle of reporters from around the country. He was on stage again at Thursday's rally at Invesco Field, singing the internet hit "Yes We Can" with Will.I.Am before an audience of 70,000. For Legend, who had emerged from humble roots in Springfield, Ohio to become the Obama campaign's most visible musical surrogate, the moment represented both a political and personal apotheosis.

I caught up with Legend at Harold Ford's Democratic Leadership Conference party on August 26. It was a private affair for big Democratic donors, party activists and anyone connected enough to get their name on the VIP list. Though the club management had forbidden filming, I slipped into Legend's dressing room after his performance for an impromptu on-camera chat about his involvement on the Obama campaign, his anti-poverty crusading, and his development into an activist entertainer.

Diddy to McCain: "You Are Buggin" with Palin

September 1, 2008

Forget Paris Hilton, rapper and music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs is now taking on John McCain.

Combs posted an extended YouTube blog this weekend, part of his "Diddy Obama blog" series, blasting McCain for making a reckless running mate selection. "No disrespect, I love you, I want you to live to be 110," he says into a rotating camera. "If you really think we are going to let you win this election with these decisions that you're making, you're buggin!" he adds.

The video, which is laced with f-bombs, calls on youth voters to "protect our future" and stop McCain. After just two days, Combs' address is already one of the top viewed and most favorited videos in YouTube's News and Politics section, with over 50,000 views. It still trailed Obama's convention speech and a handful of other Palin clips.

New Obama Ad Rebuts Palin Pick (Updated)

August 30, 2008

The Obama campaign released a new, national cable ad on Saturday responding to John McCain's decision to tap Sarah Palin as his running mate. The message could not be clearer: Forget McCain/Palin, this ticket is all about McCain/Bush.

The negative ad comes just after Obama and Biden congratulated Palin's progress, though not her positions, touting her on Friday as a "compelling new voice" whose assent marked an "encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics." Picking up where that praise left off, the ad says McCain offers no change, given his economic policies and support for Bush. "He's made his choice," the narrator sighs, "but for the rest of us, there's still no change." The Obama camp is right to commend the Palin pick for breaking barriers -- I had a similar reaction on Friday -- and immediately return to savaging McCain for his elitist economic agenda and stubborn support for the failed Bush policies of the past.

The ad is below, followed by video of Obama speaking about Palin, and then a clip of an MSNBC debate I did from the Democratic convention. The debate focsed on McCain's outreach to Clinton supporters and the prospect of putting a women on his ticket.

Palin and "The Lumberjack Song"

August 29, 2008

Those disparaging Palin's lack of achievements have forgotten that it was Palin who wrote the famous "Lumberjack Song," which of course is about life in Alaska: "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK/I sleep all night and I work all day."

The song generated controversy because of the next lines, "I cut down trees, I skip and jump/I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars."

And it was also Palin who co-starred in the famous "Dead Parrot" sketch, playing the pet shop owner who maintains that a "Norwegian Blue" parrot lying in the bottom of his cage is not dead: "no, he's resting. . . . he's probably pining for the fjords." The BBC named it the number one "alternative comedy sketch" of all time.

McCain's Hail Mary Pass

August 29, 2008

The news was so stunning I refused to believe it until I saw John McCain on the TV screen announcing his pick for Vice President. There's no need to disparage Sarah Palin. She's seems like a smart, serious person. But what the choice reveals about McCain is devastating with a capital D for Desperation.

Within forty-eight hours, all America will be talking about her. What people will say is, "You mean, if John McCain croaks, she becomes our president?" Gasp, yes. That is what McCain has decided. So much for "experience" and wise judgment as a campaign issue.

The Senator was widely thought to be on the fifty-yard line, nose to nose with Barack Obama. But this selection reveals the Republican campaign strategists knew better. Picking the obscure and under-experienced governor from Alaska for veep means McCain and his people recognize they are in a very weak position for the fall campaign. So weak they decided to throw a forty-year Hail Mary pass and hope audaciously for a lucky catch.

Gloves Off at Invesco

August 29, 2008

Barack Obama took audacity to new heights tonight and if the crowd's reaction to his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium is any indicator--he knocked it out of the park, touchdown, homerun and every other tired sports metaphor this blogger can't think of. What impressed me most is the sheer chutzpah of the moment--the daring of attempting to fill a football stadium (done), the daunting logistical challenge of coordinating the event (ding), the intelligence and grassroots organizing that went into the programming (yeah, they did) and, above all, how much rhetorical work Obama pulled off in a speech that had the highest of expectations.

He hit hard on John McCain, tougher than was expected, inverting the normal convention convention whereby surrogates attack the rival candidate but the nominee is all sweetness-and-light. Pointing out that McCain voted 90 percent of the time with Bush, Obama said, "I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change," to thunderous and sustained applause. From the economy to the war--Obama linked McCain to the Bush administration's record, and he was helped, perhaps crucially, by six citizens who testified to their very ordinary, very moving ordeals--including an autoworker, a teacher, a nurse, a pet store owner and a guy named Barney Smith, who gave the most memorable line of the night when he said, in the most adorable dorky way, "We need a President who fights for Barney Smith, not Smith Barney!"

If, to my mind, there were some political sour notes, especially the suggestion that Iraq was enjoying a surplus while Americans suffered a deficit, the sheer constraints on a Barack Obama candidacy were also revealed--the burden of proving one's patriotism, discrediting ignoble smears against one's faith (not that there's anything wrong with being a Muslim) and countering the McCain talking point that political popularity is the equivalent of cult worship. Perhaps, because of these burdens--many unique to Obama, most unfair--some of the necessary, crucial themes seemed, to this blogger, buried too deep within. The economic crisis that most Americans struggle with was movingly highlighted, but the solutions--or even the chief culprits--remained vague. The foreign policy dilemmas remained too wrapped in the language of American exceptionalism. The culture war was assuaged, but only with significant cheats--the idea, for example, that gun control is about "keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals" or that same-sex marriage was about visiting one's loved one in the hospital.