As for Obama, [John Edwards] says: “Sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric.” ? The News & Observer, May 6, 2008

(Yes, even John Edwards wonders if there’s any there there.)


Students of rhetoric, fellow sufferers, hie thee away from Barack Obama’s speech last night, I urge! It is a Drudge Report “flash report” right now, but don’t click! For the love of sane humanity, don’t click!

Oh, dear. You want highlights? A sip of insipidity? Read on, yon mental masochist:

Millions of voices have been heard/change must come to Washington/listen not to your doubts or your fears but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations/historic journey/a new and better day/defining moment for our nation/made history/universal health care/transform our energy policy/lift our children out of poverty/need to change Washington/a moment that will define a generation/cannot afford to keep doing what we’ve been doing/owe our children a better future/owe our country a better future/dream of that future/change/change/failed to create well-paying jobs, or insure our workers, or help Americans afford the skyrocketing cost of college — policies that have lowered the real incomes of the average American family, widened the gap between Wall Street and Main Street, and left our children with a mountain of debt/spend billions of dollars a month on a war that isn’t making the American people any safer/change/Change/a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged/common threats of the 21st century — terrorism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease/change/Change/change/Change/struggles facing working families/more tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs/giving a the middle-class a tax break/investing in our crumbling infrastructure/transforming how we use energy/improving our schools/change/health care/change/addiction to oil from dictators/change/owe it to our children/a college education should not be a privilege for the wealthy few, but the birthright of every American/change/another election that’s governed by fear, and innuendo, and division/health insurance/working families with a tax break/this is our moment/policies of the past/new ideas/new direction for the country we love/

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.

I left that last paragraph as-is because it strikes me as the ne plus ultra of American leftist vapidity, solipsism, vanity, silliness, and self-worshipping excess.