elfs | Blogging the Obama Speech

So, I watched Obama's speech tonight, and the opening pieces.

I have to say that the opening video was very thrilling, and I admire greatly the way the producers of the video did not shy away from the hard impression that Barack Obama is black. When you hear him talk or when you watch him in person or on television today, that doesn't come across. But the teenage kid with the afro, standing next to his very white mother, really drove home the blackness of Obama in a way that usually isn't strongly obvious in his day-to-day appearances. The video didn't shy away from his father, either.

More importantly, when Obama himself came out on stage, he introduced his family, his two lovely children (who were just adorable onstage), and other people who supported him. He went after McCain's record, and he challenged McCain's rhetoric. He was especially good on going after Bin Laden, and even moreso when he emphatically said that McCain is an honorable man who lives in a bubble of privilege and celebrity, who wants to do the right thing but doesn't know what the right thing is. He turned both the celebritard and the warhawk memes on McCain in ways the McCainites did not expect. This speech was a suckerpunch.

I was pleased that he didn't lean too heavily on the anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech. He did what he had to do, and he did it well.