I'm only slowly realizing how good this speech was. McCain was just refuted and made to look silly. Of course people have disproved him before, but not in so monumental and definitive a matter. Frank Luntz is giving him a great review, saying he was crystal clear. This is on Fox News, mind you: even they, who are fundamentally propagandists, unconcerned with the truth. But he just predicted Obama will have a ten point lead 72 hours from now. Expectations game? Well, he sounded sincere tonight. McCain can not match him in a set piece of rhetoric like this. George Bush will cause McCain horrible press in the coming days, if the Democrats are conscious.
Ahh, now Luntz is saying John McCain should steal into the audience, disowning speech writers and the like, and engage the skeptical public at the Republican National Convention in a town-hall meeting. Me thinks it fixed by the parti pris. Also, Luntz says that McCain, with his age and his POW-ness, has a wisdom that McCain could not. Here I strongly object. Obama, with his brilliant ability to essaier himself, a la Montaigne, is a very wise man. That was Toni Morrison's reason to endorse Obama. McCain, by comparison, seems taken with righteousness, and the good, and concepts such as honour, and nation, and courage. Of course, these things are real in a certain respect, but McCain builds narratives of reality in a way that requires an enemy, since fighting the enemy is the "surest" way to do good. This leads to very real problems, like the way McCain talks about foreign policy so belligerently. Putin responded today, and I don't think anyone should be pleased with how he did. He treated McCain like the spokesperson for America, and the result was tension. If you want more of this, vote for Luntz's wise-guy.
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