Surprisingly upbeat Democratic Convention speech with a direction and “movement”. (Tweety did keep babbling this word between choo choo train blasts behind the ridiculous MSNBC gazebo). HRC did draw a great line between McCain and this convention, better than the Prince has managed to do. Was it us or did the MSNBC ‘talent’ appear on the verge of disrobing and engaging in spontaneous if appalling group ‘contact’ ?
We still don’t suspect the schism *in the base* to end any time soon — one speech a rift does not close. His acolytes’ delirium over HRC’s presence (marked by Olbermann’s tent twitching beneath the table) is a rapture shared by those whose pupils are already dilated. Watching Maddow and Olbermann salivate over it all (despite the awkward and terribly unlikely visual) did hold a certain macabre fascination. Until one considers the long term implications of 2 straight hours of *that kool aid* every night.
We had this set piece below all lined up earlier in the day — an Evita-esque lament, albeit not from a balcony; now the set must be dismantled and dispatched to storage beneath the stage, like unused scenery for a cancelled opera at the Met.
Still, Bill Krystal et al. have months to remind us yet again how shabbily she has been treated . . . there is still time.
What interests us most is how Obama-ism (whatever that is) can survive the dismount to concretization into a predictable and specific party platform. Successful (non-American until 2004) electoral mass movements went all the way relying on abstract invocation of emotional intoxification. The intention is obvious — the candidate becomes the projection of all things to all people.
In those cases, it was not inexperience but a calculated device to keep a party platform formless. Once in power, the ‘party’ is discarded and becomes a mere function or extension of the ultimate arbiter’s will. (In the Soviet case, Stalin was forced to destroy the Party over 15 years of murder and chaos to achieve this end. Others who obtained power electorally obtained this far more easily).
The Prince certainly has ambition. We’ve seen what happens when he descends to the concrete — FISA, no offshore but now offshore, etc. We should be grateful one supposes that he lacks the ruthless *hidden, ‘unalterable’* world view shared by a cadre beholden unto him. In the end, he is a normal politician mercifully.
An Obama demystified as another politician sputtering tired and cliched specifics, toting around a jaw-jawing Biden chained to his ankle. Perhaps HRC is indeed shrewd to step aside with an apres vous last night. Going up against, as Paris so aptly summed up, ‘that white haired dude.’ (Hat tip: Unqualifed Offerings).
America, you’ve got talent!
(This is what we were secretly hoping for – an overt car wreck spectacle, however unlikely).
Where do we go from here?
This isn’t where we intended to be
We had it all, you believed in me
I believed in you
Certainties disappear
What do we do for our dream to survive?
How do we keep all our passions alive,
As we used to do?
Deep in my heart I’m concealing
Things that I’m longing to say
Scared to confess what I’m feeling
Frightened you’ll slip away
[Chorus:]
You must love me
You must love me
Why are you at my side?
How can I be any use to you now?
Give me a chance and I’ll let you see how
Nothing has changed
[bridge]
[chorus]
You must love me
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