Monday, August 25, 2008

First Impressions from the First Night of the DNC

We're an hour into the Democratic National Convention, and I have some thoughts from watching it.

1) If the Democrats wanted to kick off their convention with a bang, they failed. Miserably. From Nancy Pelosi's rambling speech to Jesse Jackson Jr. screaming at the audience, the first hour was not the Democrats' finest hour. It's still early, but it's not looking good.

2) Is it just me, or are the Democrats trying a little too hard to portray themselves as patriotic, Christian, and working class folks? The first hour of the convention, I saw Pelosi harping on how Obama is a patriot, Jimmy Carter proclaiming that Obama is a Christian, and Jesse Jackson Jr. screaming that Democrats are for the working man. The problem is that if you have to keep telling people what you are, most likely you're not what you say you are. Add this to the number of American flags being waved by convention goers, and it just looks and smells like the Dems are trying to convince people (and themselves) that they're just as patriotic as the GOP.

3) Whomever set the date for the DNC this year should be fired. This is a horrible time for the Democrats to showcase their party, mainly because of the Olympics. Americans have already invested quite a bit of time watching TV over the past couple of weeks, and the convention is a big time for interested parties to get a chance to see one of the major political parties in action. Do you honestly think people are going to invest in four more nights of TV watching when there are no sports involved? I don't. Furthermore, people traditionally don't pay attention to a Presidential election until after Labor Day, and the DNC is...before Labor Day. Oops.

4) Seriously, can we do something about Jimmy Carter being on air? The only thing that would have made his interview with Jim Leher on PBS any more unbearable would be if Carter were doing a sit-down interview with Larry King. Carter has not aged well and looked positively feeble-minded when Leher asked him about a negative statement Carter made in 2006 about Obama's lack of experience. Carter's response was pathetic: "Well, that was two years ago."

5) Nancy Pelosi's speech tonight was punctuated with several opportunities to say, "And John McCain is wrong." But Pelosi made more than a few errors in her speech, not the least of which being a statement about "our democracy." Sorry, Madame Speaker, but we aren't a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. In other words, I was right...AND NANCY PELOSI WAS WRONG!

6) I don't know what it is, but seeing Keith Olbermann trying to look and sound like a legitimate journalist makes me giggle.

7) Obama's half sister gave a speech within the first hour of the convention. How could I tell? She was having a hard time reading the teleprompter, too.

Well, that's all I could stomach for one night. Tune in tomorrow to see if I can make it through another hour of the DNC.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You have no idea how much I appreciate your taking one for the team.

And I was thinking....if Michelle got up and talked about what a success story her family was - you know, modest upbringings, educational opportunity, good job, almost First Lady - wouldn't that sort of prove that the change Obama promises really is rather moot?