DRILL BABY DRILL!
I was surely not the only person to note that new Republican catchphrase and wonder whether it had been informed or inspired by Mario Bava's Italo-horror masterpiece Kill Baby Kill!
Couple of comments on the McCain speech only because I've been out flaneuring all day and just managed to catch it on C-Span.
If he loses, which I still think he will, it won't be because of his "maverik" character and his long bipartisan & anti-corruption Senate record (which has rubbed up Republican hardliners over and over again, and shows Obama's Senate / Chicago record to be both very partisan and mildly corrupt) but because he cannot deliver a speech.
I mean, it was REALLY badly delivered. Cameras constantly zoomed in on black females and Republican Babes and war vets in the audience throughout, and yet coudln't help alighting on two males faces yawning wildly. Which, was, I think slightly embarrasing, in comparison to the weird rapturous euphoria that gripped Obama's boring and monotone and insubstantial speech.
McCain's speech was better written in many ways. It was a strange speech to deliver to a hardcore Republican base audience (he mainly turn up to these events) because of the emphasis on "reform" and "change". In a way, that's clever, because reform emphasises Palin's local record in that regard, and change steals one of Obama's big buzz words.
But at every mention of these two words, with their accompanying anti-"pork barrel politics" and "special interest" messages, the applause was distinctly muted. Unlike every mention of tax cuts, the Surge, the Roosevelt-Reagan tradtion, religion, Vietnam. And, also contrasted the passage on Palin, as well as Palin's over-effusive reception. (Now, you see, she could deliver a speech, had the drilling issue in total command, as well as the God and Guns thing: so her reform and anti-corruption agenda was well-balanced out. Not for McCain. This odd balance is, however, a reason the ticket might appeal to those ominous "floating voters".)
Significant portions of the Republican convention have NO appetitie for McCain, this is obvious still, and I sensed a quiet but resiliant opposition to Him + Reform & Change.
It's dangerous tactics, is it not, to stake out this line, when the Republican's have been running the country for 8 years? It's hardly on-message. It's a not so subtle critique of the Bush years, and members of the administration, notably, I think, Dick Cheney.
I thought it was an uncomfortable, tense speech to deliver, given in an appropriately awkward manner.
It was interesting to be reminded (or informed for most of you, I suspect) of McCain's Navy and Vietnam and Senate years. How can Obama's resume stand up to this in any way?
I would still like one Dissensian to give me a run down of Obama's career that goes beyond him writing numerous memoirs about how unique and interesting he is and several unremarkable Senate years.