Michelle Obama's speech was cautious but effective
James Forsyth 5:02am
Michelle Obama played it safe tonight. Gone was the sassy campaigner I remember seeing in Iowa and South Carolina.
The aim of the speech was to introduce Michelle Obama to the public and to dispel the idea of her as an angry, divisive figure. On that score, it worked.
Michelle Obama sounded both humble and proud of her country—the opposite of how her critics portray her. By talking about her father, she was able to emphasise his commitment to work and self-reliance, one of the key American values. Describing how he coped with MS, she said simply that he “woke up a little earlier and worked a little harder.”
Her main theme was how Barack’s desire to see the world as it should be not as it is was what attracted her to him. It brought her to the emotional high point of the speech, although if truth be told the passage was relatively devoid of substance:
“That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack’s journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope.
That is why I love this country.”
After Michelle had finished the speech with a God bless America, the Obama children joined her on stage and Barack via video-link. What followed was a little sickly, but went down well in the hall and—so I’m told—on TV.
The decision by the Obama campaign to take no risks with Michelle’s speech, meant that it was not as compelling as it could be. But it did do the valuable work of preventing the stereotype of her from gaining further traction.
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Chuck Unsworth
August 26th, 2008 7:41am Report this commentSo Americans are voting for the beautiful Michelle Obama too?
Is this a new trend where spouses are part of the deal? How does that work, democratically? We've seen the effects with (inter alia) the Clintons, the Blairs, the Bhuttos, the Marcos regime, the Sarkozys and - in London - the Livingstone menage. Where does this lead to? And how are these spouses held to account for their political actions by the voting public - the electorates?
Perhaps we should be rather more wary of 'family' influences, after all divorce is apparently on the increase. Who gets to keep the dog?
THX1138
August 26th, 2008 7:58am Report this commentShe nailed it.
Chris
August 26th, 2008 8:41am Report this commentSo it turns out that while he's a vacuous nincompoop to the bone, she can fake vacuous nincompoopery with the best of them. That's what America needs.
Chris M
August 26th, 2008 1:36pm Report this commentSoap opera flannel.
Familar Clown
August 26th, 2008 2:43pm Report this commentDream baby
Got me dreamin' sweet dreams
The whole day thru
Dream baby
Got me dreamin' sweet dreams
Nighttime too
I love you
And I really need you
You know I do
Dream baby, make me
Stop my dreamin'
You can make my
Dreams come true
Oh sweet dream baby...
Now you can wrap her up again in cling-film. (Glad wrap?)
Verity
August 26th, 2008 3:49pm Report this comment"On that score, it worked."
Only if you're stupid man. The women would have had her number.
Men are pathetically easy to fool.
Marian C
August 26th, 2008 6:19pm Report this commentOh please someone pass me the sick bucket!!!!
Verity
August 26th, 2008 6:31pm Report this commentYou and me both, Marion!
THX1138
August 26th, 2008 7:22pm Report this commentC'mon you're all being very mean spirited, it was a great speech under huge pressure, any of you lot fancy having a go on that podium on front of the world?
David
August 26th, 2008 8:23pm Report this commentNotice how she spoke at length of American values. The Obama camp realises she alienated Americans with her "for the first time I am proud of being and American" and similar foot in the mouth utterances. This was a tacit admission by the Obama campaign she screwed up and is their damage control.
Verity
August 26th, 2008 11:08pm Report this commentIt wasn't "a great speech". It was boilerplate and this gal was in her element.
"any of you lot fancy having a go on that podium on front of the world?" No. That's why we're not running, She is.
I'm always baffled by men who term people who don't like their heroes "mean spirited". "Mean spirited" in what way? Care to share? Why has your choice been elevated above discussion? Do you know how babyish you sound?
Verity
August 26th, 2008 11:47pm Report this commentCan anyone give a reasonable, easy-to-understand explanation of why some words are hi-lighted in dark green that has lot of black in it?
Is this something cool they're doing on some American blog inside the Beltway?
It this something new and chic
Frank Pulley
August 27th, 2008 10:59am Report this commentTHX1138
Mean spirited is not only allowed, it's a duty when opposing flim-flammery, otherwise you're hooked. Are you hooked? C'mon yourself!
Remember the power that the US President can potentially wield. Heed the rumblings from that duo of arrogant short-assed strutters in Russia. Heed the threat from Islamic jihad. Observe the collapse of Pakistan into chaos. Do we need a strong leader of the Western World? Will Obama be a strong leader? Geopolitics is for real, not a feckin' soap opera. MAD may negate the possibility of nuclear war with Russia, but it will not stop them nibbling away at the caucasus and increasingly getting a stranglehold on our energy supplies, because the West is not only weak it's riddled in every organ with the treachery of the Left. Iran is moving closer to the nuclear option, both for its own aggrandisment and for delegation to the militant nutters. Do we really need a wet-behind-the-ears politician at the helm of Planet West with highly questionable string-pullers writing his scripts and a Jane Fonda lookalike as the potential White House hostess? You are a nousy guy, despite your leftist leanings (forgivable in the young), which I expect you will eventually shed when harsh reality envelops your psyche. But falling for this Obamas crap is something I would not have expected of you. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!
As for the podium plea. WTF has that to do with anything; if you're looking for sympathy you'll find it in the dictionary somewhere between shit and syphilis, not in the coffee house I hope.
Frank Pulley
August 27th, 2008 12:38pm Report this commentPete
What happened to my response to THX? Was it spiked or was it the cybermuda triangle?
THX1138
August 27th, 2008 2:19pm Report this commentC'mon we all see what we want. I saw a poised intelligent woman who is not a professional politician make a great speech about her life & family under huge pressure, you saw nothing but a political enemy & you would hate whatever she said.
Whether you like or not the USA is moving to the left whoever wins the Whitehouse, (McCain is a "leftie" Republican) & the Dems are going to win big in both houses in November.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
As for Russia we lost all moral authority to criticise when we invaded Iraq against International Law did you see Condi Rice & Zalmay Khalilzad outline & criticism of Russia that could have been made almost Identically for the US Invasion of Iraq. Putin must have been pissing himself laughing over the steaming hypocrisy of it all, I was.
Jon Stewart is hilarious as ever
http://tinyurl.com/6psf3
Obama has an Iron will & won't be giving anything to our enemies read the Audacity of Hope or The New Yorker article to see what I mean BTW he writes his own speeches & I'm not so young.
Good to be back arguing with you guys after two weeks away in the rain
Marian C
August 27th, 2008 9:01pm Report this commentFrank Pulley
August 27th, 2008 10:59am - Well said Sir
THX1138
August 27th, 2008 2:19pm
“C'mon we all see what we want. I saw a poised intelligent woman who is not a professional politician make a great speech about her life & family under huge pressure, you saw nothing but a political enemy & you would hate whatever she said.”
Well as you say ‘C'mon we all see what we want’, well I certainly didn’t see what you saw. I certainly didn’t think it was a ‘great speech’; it was rubbish and puek inducing to say the very least. As you say, she is ‘not a professional politician’, which I would agree with, she’s very far from it, but she is certainly a budding day/evening soap actress; but nothing more than that. Anyone can see, she will say anything / do anything to get her husband elected. All that bilge about her family background / his family background et al, honestly, I was waiting for the violins and the tissues to come out, total crap all of it. Personally, I don’t see why she feels she needs to give a speech on anything to anyone about anything; nobody is voting for her, it’s her husband they will be voting for, so who cares what she has to say on any subject. I did wonder however, if is she was using this so called speech, as a practice session in readiness for the next presidential election in 2012 when she can run against Hilary herself. I don’t trust her, nor her wannabee windbag husband; they are both a pair of fakes.
Frank Pulley
August 28th, 2008 8:43am Report this commentTHX
Yes, welcome back, it's good to have a honing stone upon which to sharpen the quill.
"I'm not so young."
Sorry, my remark was both patronising and ageist, but everyone in the blogosphere is young from my perspective I fear(except perhaps Max Kaye whom I suspect has seen almost as many moons as me and a couple of blue ones to boot).
As for Benedict O'Bama writing his own speeches, a man of your age should know that the words of a Presidential contender are carefully crafted by script writers and processed through a fine sieve. There are a lot of bucks at stake. He may be the amanuensis for the string-pullers, but he's really there for the delivery and the Harry Belafonte shtick, not the content. And so it will remain throughout his Presidency, if (God forbid) he wins. Those calling the shots are the ones you should be worried about, not the front man.
"...we lost all moral authority when we invaded Iraq against International law."
Ha! We've done that one to death before. Saddam is dead, the world is a better place for it. Iraq has a chance, it's up to them now replace Saddam with something better. They should be grateful for the sacrifice of their own dead and ours and the moolah invested by the West. 'Blud und eisen' is the only interntional law that matters when your own country or that of your allies is constantly threatened by a Stalinist monster who is aspiring to acquire nuclear weapons. When a Stalinist monster has them, it's too late (hence Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany; and now Georgia, the Ukraine, etcetera and etcetera.
Bush 43 did what Bush 41 should have done. As for Clinton's nuancing and prattle, pshaw! And he's still at it! He has compulsive verbal diarrhea as well as sexual incontinence. If you're that impressed by Jon Stewart tell him to run for President. He's funny - period!
As for the 'iron will' of B0 and 'not giving anything to our enemies': depends on who he (and you) consider to be our enemies. Iron will? His flip-flopping makes a sea-lion on the rocks look positively stable. Any iron in the will corroded to dust when the going got tough and when the script writers shouted "Shit!" he sat and strained.
I'm appalled that the MSM here are giving him such an easy ride, particularly our own hosts on this magazine, where the B and O in 'blog' should be highlighted in blue (to expand Verity's earlier point).
Other than those couple of minor points, THX, as always I enjoyed your post.
Next!
Frank Pulley
August 28th, 2008 8:52am Report this commentMarion C
Yes indeedy! I fear THX may have an endearing streak of misplaced sentimentality in his soul. Like you, I got reverse peristaltic urges in my oesophagus as she spoke'. Luckily my dinner had already moved on to the lower reaches of my alimentary canal and it would take more than Michelle ma belle to move me to the skitters. On the other hand if her old man gets elected, that could well be another matter.
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