Convention Thread

Posted by BooMan | Sep 6, 2012 | 28 |

Here’s a thread for convention-watchers who want to make observations. I’m a little sad tonight because this really is going to be the last speech Obama has to give where his political career is riding on the outcome. We’ll probably see State of the Union addresses, and we’ll probably see him speak to the nation after some tragedy or another, but he’ll never again have to perform on this level with this amount of pressure. And it has always been a joy to watch Barack Obama perform as a politician. It’s the same kind of joy you get from watching a Gold Medal performance in the Olympics, or a successful Mars landing, or a really great rendition of a Beethoven symphony, or any other area where humans step up to the spotlights under pressure and just nail it. He’s been the Mohammed Ali of politics for five years. He’s had his bad fights; he’s underestimated an opponent or two. But he’s been magnificent.

Yes, we still have the debates. But Obama has never been better than adequate at debating. Tonight is his last real chance to show us what he can do.

He’s been setting things up for tonight for at least three years. He’s taken all the haymakers and all the slow, awkward punches. Now it is time for the counterattack.

About The Author

BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.

28 Comments

BooMan on September 6, 2012 at 9:10 pm

I hear that John Kerry landed one haymaker after another.
- boran2 on September 6, 2012 at 9:14 pm
  
  T-shirt material: “Ask Osama Bin Laden if he’s better off than he was 4 years ago.”
  - BooMan on September 6, 2012 at 9:17 pm
    
    He’s definitely less stressed out.
    - boran2 on September 6, 2012 at 9:27 pm
      
      I laughed when I heard it but I was surprised that Kerry was the one who said it.
boran2 on September 6, 2012 at 9:13 pm

On PBS, Mark Shields opined that things might have gone much better in 2004 for Kerry had he spoken with this fervor. Gotta agree.
BooMan on September 6, 2012 at 9:13 pm

Vanity Fair:

Light from a chandelier of gilt bronze and crystal spilled across the hand-carved Louis XV desk where Jacques Chirac was working. His office, the Salon Doré, was an opulent holdover from 18th Century France, its golden walls adorned with Gobelins tapestries that surrounded the most valuable antiques in all of Élysée Palace. But on this day, the familiar grandeur barely registered with the French president as he waited for a phone call from Bush.

The topic, again, would be Iraq. Just weeks after the first U.N. resolution demanding that Saddam comply with his disarmament obligations, the Bush Administration was pushing the Security Council to take the next step, authorizing a U.N.-backed invasion. Chirac remained unconvinced that military action was necessary. He still considered the evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to be flimsy at best. Rushing into battle based on hunches and theories struck him as the height of folly.

Bush had been particularly unpersuasive in making the case, Chirac thought. Months before, Bush had leaned on him to support an authorization for military action as part of the first U.N. resolution. Chirac refused, arguing that it was too soon to be discussing the use of force before giving weapons inspectors a chance to do their work. Even now, the U.N. team had barely been given enough time to locate their hotel in Iraq, much less find hidden armaments. Yet here was Bush, tub-thumping about war again. Chirac would have none of it; authorizing military action at this stage would make the original resolution seem like a cynical cover for a premeditated attack.

The call came through and the two men traded diplomatic pleasantries.

“Jacques,” Bush said, “Saddam is digging in. He is lying to the world and he is lying to Blix. We can’t let him think that the U.N. is a paper tiger that won’t enforce its own resolutions.”

“I understand your concerns, George, but the inspectors need more time. War should be the last option, and it will be our admission of failure. I am not convinced that the situation is urgent, or even that the weapons are there. Before we take an irreversible step, we need to be certain of our beliefs.”

Delay would only serve to embolden Saddam, Bush replied. “He has to hear a unified message from us, a declaration that the world is allied against him,” he said. “We know he will not comply unless he feels the pressure.”

Bush wasn’t listening to him, Chirac thought. Instead, he was jumping all over the rhetorical map in search of the magic words that would win him over. Saddam was lying, the U.N. had to prove itself, the allies had to work together. Perhaps, but all beside the point if illegal armaments weren’t found. What if, in fact, Saddam was telling the truth? With the U.N. staring him down and inspectors roaming the country, Saddam couldn’t do anything with his arsenal, even if it existed. War would change that. If foreign forces cornered the Iraqi leader, and if he really did have such weapons at his disposal, they wouldn’t remain hidden anymore. Instead, they would be trained on American soldiers and anyone allied with them.

But before Chirac could elaborate on that point, Bush veered into another direction.

“Jacques,” he said, “You and I share a common faith. You’re Roman Catholic, I’m Methodist, but we are both Christians committed to the teachings of the Bible. We share one common Lord”

Chirac said nothing. He didn’t know where Bush was going with this.

“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East,” Bush said. `’Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.”

Gog and Magog? What was that?, thought Chirac.

“This confrontation,” Bush said, “is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a new age begins.”

Chirac was bewildered. The American president, he thought, sounded dangerously fanatical.

After the call ended, Chirac called together his senior staff members and relayed the conversation.

“He said, `Gog and Magog.’ Do any of you know what he is talking about?”

Blank faces and head shakes.

“Find out,” Chirac said.

Near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Thomas Römer, a theology professor at the University of Lausanne, was working in his office when the phone rang. On the line was the head of the Biblical Service at the Protestant Federation of France with an odd request: Jacques Chirac wanted to know the meaning of “Gog and Magog.”

“He recently spoke with the President of the United States, and he brought up Gog and Magog in relation to the recent events in the Middle East,” she said. “Could you write a page about it, explaining the meaning?”

The original appeal for help came from Chirac’s aides at Élysée Palace, she said. They had first sought out the Protestants for an answer, since Bush belonged to the evangelical Christian movement. Because the concept of Gog and Magog had its origins in the Old Testament they turned to Römer, a world-renowned expert on the Hebrew Scriptures.

“I’d be happy to help,” Römer said. He understood Bush’s reference; it would be easy to put in plain words for Chirac.

At his computer, Römer typed the explanation. The words “Gog and Magog” appear in two books of the Old Testament, Genesis and Ezekiel. The available translations of the text were quite cryptic and theologians had long debated their meaning. In Genesis, they appear to refer to two creatures. But Ezekiel used them in the description of a future war. Evangelicals seized on the passages as a prophesy of an apocalyptic conflict between good and evil in the time of the Messiah.

That interpretation was reinforced by the use of the term in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. Although that mention of Gog and Magog does not refer to the same people or events, it does pertain to a war fought at the end of the millennium, with Satan attempting to deceive the nations of the world and engage in a battle against Christ and his saints. According to that rendition, the righteous would emerge victorious, and Satan would be flung into a lake of fire.

That Bush was invoking this Biblical concept as a justification for his foreign policy didn’t surprise Römer –for some reason, Republican politicians in America seemed to have a weakness for Gog and Magog. Ronald Reagan, for example, had proclaimed this Biblical confrontation between good and evil would pit the United States against the Soviet Union, which had abandoned God at the time of the Russian Revolution.

Now, with America’s old enemy defunct, Bush had apparently decided that Moscow had nothing to do with the battle of Gog and Magog. Instead, the forces of evil had emerged in Baghdad.

The response from Römer confirmed Chirac’s worst fears–Biblical writings were influencing Bush’s decisions about war in the Middle East. A certainty of God’s will would surely blind any political leader to the evidence of man–weapons inspections would never persuade the Administration if Bush believed a clash with Iraq was being guided by God. And that sealed it–Chirac would oppose all military action. France was not going to fight a war based on an American president’s interpretation of the Bible.
- Phil Perspective on September 6, 2012 at 10:10 pm
  
  At least Chirac was right, no matter the reason he chose.
- MNPundit on September 6, 2012 at 10:39 pm
  
  It amuses me that none of them had any idea at ALL what it was about.
  - Phil Perspective on September 6, 2012 at 11:30 pm
    
    Because they aren’t wingnut Christians. Hell, most wingnut Christians don’t even know it.
    - MNPundit on September 7, 2012 at 11:12 am
      
      If you call yourself a Christian you should probably read the Bible. I think you’d at least have some inkling of the identity in that case. I don’t expect them to know the way their used though.
      - MNPundit on September 7, 2012 at 11:12 am
        
        They’re, not their. Sorry.
Indianadem on September 6, 2012 at 10:08 pm

Lots of wingnut/teatard trolling on CSPAN convention Twitter feed.
- BooMan on September 6, 2012 at 10:12 pm
  
  Surprised?
  
  I thought Joey brought the Joementum. How about you?
  - Indianadem on September 6, 2012 at 10:23 pm
    
    Yep, pretty darn good job by Joe and most everyone I’ve heard speak at this convention. Re: trolls – they’ve stepped up their yammering just about everywhere I’ve looked over recent weeks.
RandyH on September 6, 2012 at 10:12 pm

The force is with Joe Biden tonight. I found myself tearing up during that speech. Few speakers can do that. When he shouts at the camera…

It worked on me, but I’m biased. I wonder how it worked on the over 55 crowd.
Bazooka Joe on September 6, 2012 at 10:52 pm

The President Rowdy Roddy Piper’d us, I think. Just when we thought we had all the answers, he went and changed all the questions.

Very state-of-the-uniony. Weird. It still plays fine to the crowd, and it’s loose and confident and perfectly respectable. But it’s a weird stylistic departure from some of his stump speeches I checked in on over the summer. There’s less of a narrative and more a list of things that exist.
- Bazooka Joe on September 6, 2012 at 11:01 pm
  
  I guess if I had to sum it up, I’d go with “I’m a competent manager of the national state of affairs and I’m proud of the work I’ve done, but this is your story, America. And you’ve got to keep writing it.”
  
  Lotta good energy. Strong last ten minutes. Democratic policy is such an easy feel-good story, I genuinely can’t comprehend sometimes how elections are so closely competed.
  - rae on September 6, 2012 at 11:06 pm
    
    I agree. It didn’t tell that much of a story. More a list of things that one should care about. Not his best by a long shot.
  - seabe on September 6, 2012 at 11:12 pm
    
    Yeah. Very State of the Union at the beginning. I don’t know how I feel yet, but it didn’t come off as strong (though the end was good).
    
    About the only thing I liked and thought was clever was saying “You did that,” with a theme of we’re in this together, and thumbing the GOP in the eye.
    
    I wanna hear from others. I’m bad at judging these things. I didn’t like Biden’s either, but it wasn’t targeted at me.
    - Bazooka Joe on September 6, 2012 at 11:33 pm
      
      I think they were the words of a man who has achieved the closest thing to mastery of being president that anyone could expect in these times. It was beyond formulaic campaigning.
      
      The simple confidence and the self-assuredness in message and cause reminded me of FDR in 1936 or 1940.
hz on September 6, 2012 at 11:27 pm

I agree with the general notion that this wasn’t PBHO’s best speech, but it definitely has its interesting points, and it was more than solidly written. Delivery top-notch.

Agree it sounded more like a SOTU than a campaign speech, but I haven’t been keeping up with his stump speeches this summer, either.

My favorite parts were where he did point-by-point comparisons between Dems’ ideals and the GOP, and where he pointed out Romney/Ryan’s weaknesses. I couldn’t believe that line about Romney insulting the UK, that was priceless, and it went just past a line of, what, deference to the opposition, maybe, that I don’t think I’ve ever seen the President cross.

Haven’t seen anything else yet, I just got home in time for the video right before the President’s speech.
JLHolsinger on September 6, 2012 at 11:32 pm

Which is a different beast than a first nomination speech. Actually I thought it was similar thematically to Clinton’s 1996 speech.

I also think the renomination speech is probably one of the hardest to do – it is part list of accomplishments, part big themes, part wonky policy. Threading that needle is dang near impossible but I think he did it very very well.
Indianadem on September 6, 2012 at 11:46 pm

Jennifer Granholm should have the Most Enthusiastic Speech award. She was fun to watch.
TarheelDem on September 6, 2012 at 11:55 pm

Highlights tonight:

John Lewis telling about the first time he saw Charlotte as a Freedom Rider and the beating he took at the next stop in Rock Hill SC. And about one of the mob who contacted him a couple of years ago and asked for forgiveness. And then reminding people that people died in order that all people could vote.

The “ordinary person” for the gay marriage segment talking about his lesbian parents. “I’m awesome at putting the seat down. The rest is like any other family.”

The “Thank You” for returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Gabby Giffords presence for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Biden was pitch-perfect, a classic traditional convention acceptance speech – put it in black and white and it could be from a 80-year-old newsreel. Lots of clips for campaign commercials from that one.

Obama was workmanlike, ticking off key points. Very much a “we’re still on the journey” speech. Best section was the one on citizenship. Examples of “you were the change” were essential to doing the pivot against the GOP narrative of failure. Almost a “morning in America” type of speech more than a “bridge to the 21st century” type of speech. Probably the text is better than the presentation.

Overall tone of the night was hyper-patriotic, veterans, flags, assertions of the “new American century”.
- hz on September 7, 2012 at 12:11 am
  
  Speaking of hyperpatriotism, have Democratic crowds been given to chanting “USA! USA!” like they were tonight? It struck me as novel in a Dem convention, but maybe my memory is selective. Frankly, I could have done without it, given what it’s come to symbolize.
  - TarheelDem on September 7, 2012 at 12:30 am
    
    I little last night, but I think that tonight this was planned to definitely slay the “Kenyan muslim” meme. U.S.A. and Dolan for benediction.
TarheelDem on September 6, 2012 at 11:56 pm

BTW, what was the Kal Penn stuff on the direct stream from the DNC2012 site that went for an hour before Biden’s speech?
TarheelDem on September 7, 2012 at 12:42 am

Just saw Kerry’s speech. He really hung his flip-flops around Romney’s neck. One tweet said it sounded like Kerry had stored up 8 years of whoop-ass.

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