The majesty of the night when Barack Obama became the first African
American to accept a major party’s nomination for President of the
United States overtook all the sneering about Greek columns and set
design that I suspect originated from deep within the RNC and had
trickled out to every anchor, roving reporter and pundit in Denver. The
critiques had clickety-clacked away all day like those plastic teeth
that chatter across the tabletop after you’ve wound them up and let
them go. By the end, however, nobody cared about what subliminal image
of alleged “imperiousness” would be telegraphed by the prop columns in
the background or the CNN-initiated (not the Obama campaign’s) Sky-cam
overhead. All those who packed the Invesco Field cared about, all that
stirred their hearts and electrified their minds, was the soaring
rhetoric, the clearly-delineated policy proposals, the inspirational
recollections, and the rather elegant but lethal jabs at the George Bush legacy and its favorite son, John McCain.
Obama’s skewering of McCain reminded me of the best of the
Olympic-class divers we saw in Beijing the week before. The highest
scores went to those who speared straight down into the pool and
disappeared with a minimum of residual splash. There would be no
challenges to John McCain’s patriotism here, we were told, because the
stakes are too high for the same old partisan playbook, because
“patriotism has no party,” and because our troops of many colors are
fighting, bleeding, and dying together not so much in service to red or
blue states but to the United States.
This was a speech that was long in coming, but the attacks weren’t
mounted with blunt-force trauma. More like a stiletto. And I LOVED the
stilettos -- as stylish as anything Manolo Blahnik or Jimmy Choo ever
came up with. There were oodles of them, and all the best sore spots
were skewered by them.
Want to talk about character? Judgment? Temperament? For the first time
Obama broached, rather delicately, the subject of his rival’s
hair-trigger temper -- something only whispered about in polite
Senatorial company, or speculated about openly only in the blogosphere.
Bless my soul but the Phil Gramm verbal atrocities were brought up,
too. We’re a nation of whiners? Hardly, according to Obama’s
recollections of the salt-of-the-earth Americans he met who were facing
personal, family, and/or economic adversity with increasing desperation
and yet also with courage and nobility.
The “judgment thing” was rammed head-on when Obama wondered aloud what
it says about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right
90 percent of the time, having voted with him to that extent. Obama
paid tribute to John McCain’s service, and praised his love for
country, adding that it’s not that McCain doesn’t care, but that he
doesn’t get it. Many times Obama hijacked some of what you can predict
will be upcoming Republican Convention talking points and turned them
inside out and on their backsides. One of the more devastating jabs was
aimed at the oft-repeated McCain pledge to chase bin Laden to the
“gates of Hell” -- while cheerleading a policy that diverted our troops
in Afghanistan from closing in on “the cave where he lives.”
Experience? Obama turned McCain’s much-vaunted decades of experience in
government into a liability by noting Washington’s discussion of the
energy crisis for some 30 years, while McCain was in Washington “for 26
of ‘em,” voting consistently against innovative solutions throughout.
Obama said he himself was here, in this place, and this circumstance
because of a perceptible stirring in America, a longing for change from
“broken policies of Washington and the failed policies of George W.
Bush” that McCain clings to like Saran Wrap on leftovers. Maverick?
Guess again. Obama continued -- “on issue after issue that would make a
difference in your lives, Senator McCain has been anything but
independent.”
YOUR lives -- that particular pronoun was key. Obama reminded the
wall-to-wall crowd in Invesco Field that what the naysayers don’t
understand is that “this election has never been about me. It’s about
YOU.” Celebrity? Obama said he didn’t know what kind of lives
celebrities lead. All he knew was what he’d seen growing up, working
with the needy and disenfranchised, and the many he met throughout his
campaign travels. THEY were what and whom he knew well and with whom he
identified.
There were other firsts in this landmark speech that I’m guessing will
throw conservatives -- who think government is your enemy and Democrats
are stereotypical big-government junkies -- for a loop. Obama stressed
several times how it can’t just be government that solves all your
problems, especially since government may not have created them all.
You, too, must play a role, he said, whether it’s pitching in on
conservation at home while Washington drives a wiser energy policy
overall, or a call for young people to serve country or community in
exchange for a promise of help paying for college. He added that it
takes families, with two parents to turn off the TV and make a child do
her homework -- not the government. So much for the yowling from
conservatives about Democrats mainlining some “nanny state.” So much
for the selfishness and myopia fostered by George Bush, who in our
worst national crisis told us the best thing we could do was go shopping. Not this time. Now, we’re invited to take a more active,
participatory role. And so much for the GOP-instigated insult that
somehow if you’re a liberal or Democrat, you’re soft on national
security. Obama thundered: “We are the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy.
Don’t tell me Democrats won’t defend this country…or keep us safe.”
Obama continued -- “I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We ALL put our
country first.”
He even smacked the infamous “trickle-down” economic philosophy that’s
blighted this country and betrayed the poor and middle class for the
sake of giving more to those who already have more than enough, since
it was first dubbed Reaganomics. It was sweet to see this big an effort
to connect the dots on what’s ailed this country for at least a
generation. He painted the “old Republican philosophy” since the 1980s
as just another one of the old, stale, wrong ideas that John McCain
still insists on embracing. I personally loved how he twisted the GOP
buzz phrase “the ownership society” into “it really means you’re on
your own.” This is a point that’s been begging to be made for at least
two decades. Out of work? Tough luck. You’re on your own. Health care?
The market will take care of it. Pull yourself up by your own
bootstraps even if you don’t have boots. It’s about time we had this
discussion. And as Obama put it -- “it’s time for them to own their failure.”
Obama took no prisoners: “if John McCain wants to have a debate about
who has the temperament and reserve to be president, that’s a debate
I’m ready to have.” He reminded the crowd that “we are better than
these last eight years,” and that we’re a better and more compassionate
country than one which allowed veterans to sleep on the street or to
let a city drown. The 80-some-thousand supporters roared back at him
when he declared that we love this country too much “to let the next
four years look like the last eight.” His statement “Eight is Enough!”
and the response: “Enough! Enough! Enough” echoed around the stadium
like the driving beat of Stevie Wonder.
Everything was here. Proverbial red meat, gracefully grilled, the
heartfelt nods to Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and the
anniversary of Martin Luther King’s earth-moving “I Have a Dream”
address. Obama’s inspiring struggle, life story and philosophy, were
reintroduced and explored anew. He listed numerous concrete ideas and
how they’d be paid for, and repeated his promise of ending our
involvement in Iraq, and rebuilding partnerships abroad, vowing never
to neglect or mistreat our troops either in battle or when they come
home. America must once again be that last best hope of the rest of
the world, he said, sounding every inch the candidate who’s very ready
for the Big Job. And he issued a call to the nation for a new
man-to-the-moon-type project -- of total energy independence in ten
years. The man can make a speech -- one that gets under your skin,
stokes your motivation, and gives you a metaphorical banner to hoist in battle. It felt like windows were being opened in a musty, hidden,
long-sealed attic. And, on top of everything else, there was no rain --
as publicly prayed for by some particularly annoying fundamentalist
would-be party-poopers.
This year’s Democratic National Convention ended with closing
ceremonies that made it feel almost as though we were all back in the
Bird’s Nest. Fireworks zoomed and streamers slithered through the air,
and while there was no ceiling from which to execute a better balloon
drop than we’ve seen before, they got the confetti flurries down quite
nicely. And on top of everything else, we got Al Gore as an appetizer
to one humdinger of a main course. ALWAYS useful to bring back the
living reminder of how it does make a difference -- a HUGE difference --
whom and which party you vote into power.
It made me proud to be a Democrat again. And it tempted me to start feeling hopeful again. Yes. Maybe we really can.
***
Mary Lyon is a veteran broadcaster and five-time Golden Mike Award winner, who has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press Radio Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area stations including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and occasional media analyst for ABC Radio News. She began her career as a liberal activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey/Muskie in 1968, and helped spearhead a regional campaign, The Power 18," to win the right to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal causes, responsibility and accountability in media, environmental education and support of the arts for children, and green living. In addition to World News Trust, Mary writes for Huffington Post, OpEdNews, Democrats.us, WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a parenting expert, having written and llustrated the book "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood.
