A few random thoughts right after:
* Reverend Lowery totally stole the show.
* Given that that speech was watched by more people than any he's ever made, that was a distinctly mediocre performance by Obama. Not anywhere near his 2004 convention speech, or his Iowa speech, or his race speech, or any of his other many speeches.
* I did, however, like his method of rebuking Bush, talking about returning to our values against expediency. And I thought that buried under a mass of cliche and a few unfortunate shout-outs to a pernicious right-wing ideology, there was a decent defense of liberalism.
* [Right-wing wingnut]Obama isn't really president because he flubbed the oath!![/wingnut]
* Shorter Dianne Feinstein: OMG he's black!!
* Rick Warren made it very specifically Christian, a nice fuck you to all the non-Christians in the country. But then, you invite a man like that to do the invocation, what do you expect?
* Elizabeth Anderson seemed to serve as the processional music to let people leave. About right given the place of poetry in our culture.
* [Right-wing wingnut]Hey, Obama hasn't fixed the economy yet!! He's a failure!!![/wingnut]
* Overall, quite anti-climactic. I felt a lot more moved by Pete Seeger & Bruce.
* I note with pleasure that Google has gotten around to adding "Obama" to the blogger spell-checker... but that the one that the Mac uses to check as you type hasn't.
Update, minutes later:
* I wrote all that without looking at other people's reactions. But Lowery is getting praise all over the place. Well deserved!
* One thing I've yet to see anyone note: When Obama said "Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath", he was, of course, wrong. Only 43 have. He's the 44th President because of the genuinely idiotic practice of counting Grover Cleveland twice. (You can't even say, "43 took it, one took it twice", because every President who was re-elected took it twice. (FDR took it four times.) It's just wrong, and dumb.)
Next-day Update:
I see I wasn't the only person to catch the error in Obama's claim that "Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath", although I've seen less note of it than I might have thought. Interestingly, that blog-post contains an (admittedly third-hand) claim that "the Obama folks... knew of the discrepancy and that it was less confusing to get it wrong and say 44". Which may be, in itself, the best argument I've heard yet against the truly silly double-counting of Grover Cleveland.
Showing posts with label Live-Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Live-Blogging. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Debate Live-Blogging
I wasn't planning to do this, but two things have struck me so far, and I can't resist.
9:16: (1) Sarah Palin sure knows how to stay on the talking points... even the lies, like the $42,000 one. Biden did a good job on parrying it though.
(2) Gwen Ifill's question on "class warfare" was terrible. Shame on her.
May do more later, I don't know...
9:21: The "what promises not keep" is not necessarily a bad question, but Ifill asked it in a terrible way. So far she's not doing nearly as well as Jim Lehrer.
Biden is doing a good job so far, though -- including in answering that question.
9:23: She's folksy, which I fear will play well. I think this particular answer is a bit incoherent, but I bet no one notices under the folksiness.
...And she can undo federal tax breaks? Huh?
9:26: Pitting Palin against McCain is a clever move on Biden's part.
...More rearing heads.
9:28: The bankruptcy bill was one of the things I hated about Biden. He did a good job of parrying it, I guess.
9:29: (1) It sounds to me like she's returning to the one or two things because that's all she knows, but I wonder if it will sound that way to undecided voters. Probably not.
(2) This live-blogging thing is weird.
9:31: She just said, again, that she wouldn't ascribe activities of humans to climate, not vice-versa. It's a simple glitch to make once, but twice is weird.
9:34: I fear the cute correction on "drill, baby, drill" undermined the solid point about percent of oil we have versus percent we use.
...And Biden's thing about "if free market takes care of it" [alternate energy] was badly mangled -- makes it sound like it could, and so people will say why not.
9:39: Neither Biden nor Obama support gay marriage... cowardly, bigoted schmucks.
9:40: My guess so far is that, as expected, she's exceeding expectations, and therefore winning, even though it's a tie. Or something. God our political system is !@#$%ed up.
9:42: "End this war": good for him.
...Long pause as Palin finds the right talking point: then she goes ahead on it full-steam.
9:45: Biden, "love" McCain, if you do, on your own !@#$%ing time. While running for Barack Obama's VP you're supposed to OPPOSE him.
9:47: Uh, Biden, isn't "Madrasah" just the Arabic word for school?
9:52: A good question by Ifill on the mid-east peace process.
9:55: A typical Republican talking point: "Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who..."
9:58: God she sounds like an idiot. -- To me. But I bet she's doing well with the undecideds.
10:01: I wonder if Biden's repeating himself too much.
10:02: Biden's vote for the war: the other reason I hated him. Good we hit both.
10:07: And here I thought that the biggest cliche on the Vice Presidency was that it wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit.
(Incidentally, this is one of those questions that ought to be good, but which is pretty predictably going to be silly.)
10:15: Is "principal" the standard word for the VP's P? I've never heard it before, but it's being used constantly tonight.
10:17: ...Isn't the VP's chief role to wait around for the President to die?
10:18: Another terrible question by Ifill. Not nearly as good as Lehrer. She has a much stronger tendency to go for the silly media-froth questions.
10:20: I guess Palin doesn't know that Reagan was quoting...
10:21: If I were drinking at "maverick" I'd be dead from alcohol poisoning.
10:29: Say no to energy independence? Is there any basis for that?
...And of course she doesn't like the media telling people what they just heard when she speaks, because what she does is tell lies. And if the media does that, she's sunk.
10:31: I didn't hear any major gaffs; I'd say it was a tie... which in practice probably means a win for Palin. I mean, again, she sounds like an idiot to me: but then, so did/does Bush. And he won twice. So what do I know.
10:32: Now we get to the "when I was a boy I wanted to be a baseball" portion of the evening....
10:33: Is she being overly friendly afterwards to counter the whole McCain-wouldn't-look-Obama-in-the-eye thing?
9:16: (1) Sarah Palin sure knows how to stay on the talking points... even the lies, like the $42,000 one. Biden did a good job on parrying it though.
(2) Gwen Ifill's question on "class warfare" was terrible. Shame on her.
May do more later, I don't know...
9:21: The "what promises not keep" is not necessarily a bad question, but Ifill asked it in a terrible way. So far she's not doing nearly as well as Jim Lehrer.
Biden is doing a good job so far, though -- including in answering that question.
9:23: She's folksy, which I fear will play well. I think this particular answer is a bit incoherent, but I bet no one notices under the folksiness.
...And she can undo federal tax breaks? Huh?
9:26: Pitting Palin against McCain is a clever move on Biden's part.
...More rearing heads.
9:28: The bankruptcy bill was one of the things I hated about Biden. He did a good job of parrying it, I guess.
9:29: (1) It sounds to me like she's returning to the one or two things because that's all she knows, but I wonder if it will sound that way to undecided voters. Probably not.
(2) This live-blogging thing is weird.
9:31: She just said, again, that she wouldn't ascribe activities of humans to climate, not vice-versa. It's a simple glitch to make once, but twice is weird.
9:34: I fear the cute correction on "drill, baby, drill" undermined the solid point about percent of oil we have versus percent we use.
...And Biden's thing about "if free market takes care of it" [alternate energy] was badly mangled -- makes it sound like it could, and so people will say why not.
9:39: Neither Biden nor Obama support gay marriage... cowardly, bigoted schmucks.
9:40: My guess so far is that, as expected, she's exceeding expectations, and therefore winning, even though it's a tie. Or something. God our political system is !@#$%ed up.
9:42: "End this war": good for him.
...Long pause as Palin finds the right talking point: then she goes ahead on it full-steam.
9:45: Biden, "love" McCain, if you do, on your own !@#$%ing time. While running for Barack Obama's VP you're supposed to OPPOSE him.
9:47: Uh, Biden, isn't "Madrasah" just the Arabic word for school?
9:52: A good question by Ifill on the mid-east peace process.
9:55: A typical Republican talking point: "Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who..."
9:58: God she sounds like an idiot. -- To me. But I bet she's doing well with the undecideds.
10:01: I wonder if Biden's repeating himself too much.
10:02: Biden's vote for the war: the other reason I hated him. Good we hit both.
10:07: And here I thought that the biggest cliche on the Vice Presidency was that it wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit.
(Incidentally, this is one of those questions that ought to be good, but which is pretty predictably going to be silly.)
10:15: Is "principal" the standard word for the VP's P? I've never heard it before, but it's being used constantly tonight.
10:17: ...Isn't the VP's chief role to wait around for the President to die?
10:18: Another terrible question by Ifill. Not nearly as good as Lehrer. She has a much stronger tendency to go for the silly media-froth questions.
10:20: I guess Palin doesn't know that Reagan was quoting...
10:21: If I were drinking at "maverick" I'd be dead from alcohol poisoning.
10:29: Say no to energy independence? Is there any basis for that?
...And of course she doesn't like the media telling people what they just heard when she speaks, because what she does is tell lies. And if the media does that, she's sunk.
10:31: I didn't hear any major gaffs; I'd say it was a tie... which in practice probably means a win for Palin. I mean, again, she sounds like an idiot to me: but then, so did/does Bush. And he won twice. So what do I know.
10:32: Now we get to the "when I was a boy I wanted to be a baseball" portion of the evening....
10:33: Is she being overly friendly afterwards to counter the whole McCain-wouldn't-look-Obama-in-the-eye thing?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)