Monday, August 25, 2008 - Posts
-
sponsorship
What I loved best about Michelle Obama's speech tonight was that it was fearless, but in a very different way from the fearlessness modeled by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Here is a woman with a degree from Harvard Law School, who could have talked about law and policy and poverty, and yet she talked about her kids, her husband, and her family. And she didn't do that merely to show us that smart women are soft and cuddly on the inside. She did what everyone else in this campaign is terrified to do: She risked looking sappy and credulous and optimistic when almost everyone has abandoned "hope" and "change" for coughing up hairballs of outrage. Every Democrat in America seems to be of the view that optimism is so totally last February; that now's the time to hunker down and panic real hard. Good for Michelle for reminding us that to "strive for the world as it should be" is still cool, and for being so passionate about that fact that she looked to be near tears. Good for her for speaking from the heart when everyone else seems to be speaking from the root cellar. And if that doesn't persuade you the woman is a warrior, let me just add that true bravery is letting your 7-year-old turn the first night of the Democratic Convention into open-mic night with the big screen and the party frock. Think any man alive would have done that? Me neither.
-
sponsorship
Michelle's master aim tonight: to knit herself to the American dream, the American story. How many times did she use those phrases? Her mother helped, with "I got to stay home with my kids," and her pursed proud mouth, listening in the crowd. Her handsome brother did, too, with his tales of her playing the piano to get him downstairs before a big basketball game. And those gorgeous girls of hers, telling the image of their dad on a huge TV screen that their mom did good. (Primetime Family Reality TV: I imagined my boys up there, one of whom might have been tempted to imagine the crowd as a mosh pit and dive, and let out a sigh of relief for Michelle when they gave up the mike.) The message was that this is a beautiful family and yet a real family. The subtext: if you still don't like them, is it just because they're black?
Michelle's second aim was slightly less successful, I think: to stand up for women's rights and concerns and in so doing to stand in for Hillary. Invoking the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage was good. So was calling out HIllary by name as a kind of American hero. But this wasn't where the passion in the speech lay. That went into the lines about being a sister, wife, mother, and into Michelle's evocation of her father. Maybe that's just fine, because it's what more of the country is listening for. And certainly it was too much to ask Michelle to single-handedly head off the much-rumored irate Hillary supporters. But if I can quibble with a woman who pulled off electrifying sincerity in her big moment, I wanted one more moment in coded feminist-speak, for the other sisters.
Also in Slate: John Dickerson examined Michelle Obama's big moment.
-
sponsorship
In August of 1980, I watched Teddy Kennedy's convention speech from the basement of a Holy Cross retreat house in Colorado Springs, where a bunch of us who had just graduated from Notre Dame and had signed up to spend a service year working in inner city schools and neighborhoods and parishes across the country were getting together for a few days before heading off to our various assignments. Nothing against Jimmy Carter, but I doubt there was a single one of us who hadn't been pulling for Kennedy that year, and he spoke directly to us and made us cry but also filled us with hope:
And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith.
May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again.
And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:
I am a part of all that I have met
To [Tho] much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.
For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
Tonight, watching him walk and talk a little haltingly, and listening to him quote from that 1980 speech, how could anyone not be torn up and yet thrilled, too, all over again, that his work and ours really does go on. There he was, battling brain cancer and yet showing up, not quite steady on his feet but still passionate about universal health care, uncertain of his own future but still so confident in ours, truly passing the torch not just to Barack Obama, but to all of us: "I pledge I will be there next January,'' to vote for health care reform, he said. "For me, this is a season of hope .. the work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.''
-
sponsorship
Some people just still don't buy that Michael Phelps won the 100-meter fly by a razor-thin one-hundredth of a second. Even Slate's own Will Saletan is skeptical, wondering if the sensitivity of the touch pads came into play. I've got to respectfully disagree.
I was an extremely amateur swimmer—the highest championships I made it to were zones, not nationals—but I've been to my fair share of meets and slammed into many a touch pad. Saletan writes, "It's not who touches first. It's who triggers the sensor first." The problem is he's making a distinction that does not exist in the sport. In swimming parlance, whoever triggers the sensors IS who touched first—the person who touches hard enough to stop the clock first via the touch pad. (No one goes around saying they got "sensor-triggered" out. They say they got "touched out.") There's no photo finish in swimming (and I realize they can reconstruct high-level races with photos in extreme cases like this, but the photos are backup; the touch pad determines the winner), nor does anyone care if you lightly brush the pad first. If you don't hit it hard enough to stop the clock first, you lose.
I can assure you that gliding to a finish, as every swimmer at that level knows, can be the kiss of death. I knew it at age 12, so I'm pretty confident that someone at Cavic's level of expertise knows it. Maybe he thought he didn't have enough room for a half-stroke (and Phelps, who took a chance in taking an extra half-stroke, took the right one); maybe he thought that half-stroke would cost him time or that he was far enough ahead to be first with one last full stroke. Saletan asks if Cavic "had realized how much pressure was required [to stop the touchpad], would he have shortened his stroke as Phelps did, trying to trigger the sensor first, instead of trying to touch the wall first?" In addition to there being no distinction between "trigger" and "touch," I can guarantee that Cavic most definitely was "trying to trigger the sensor first," even if he didn't know how many kilograms per square centimeter were required to do so. There's a reason the saying about finishing a race in swimming is to go "Not to the wall but through the wall." Cavic just didn't make the same smart decision to hit the wall at full velocity that Phelps did, and it cost him.
This type of loss in not uncommon in swimming—Darra Torres lost the gold this Olympics by one one-hundredth of a second herself in the 50 freestyle—and the touch pads measure to thousandths of a second for a reason (to ensure accuracy for the hundredths of a second that the times will be recorded in). Sometimes you just get touched—or sensor-triggered or however you want to say it—out, end of story.
-
sponsorship
"If anything, the country shows every sign of yearning for Clintonism as a governing idea now as much as it ever has."
-- Mark Penn, today in Politico
So I guess the Politico called Mark Penn and said hey, cowboy, we've got some rope over here that would look real good around your neck if you're up for one of those do-it-yourselfers...and of course, he couldn't resist. The result being this piece, Clintonism Lives, which I'm fairly sure was not intended as self-parody. But the fact that the guy who masterminded Hillary Clinton's campaign into a ditch still doesn't get that this is not the week for an apologia should be a cautionary tale for other Clinton fans: They will be judged on the extent to which your grudges are on display in Denver - which is why I fully expect the Clintons themselves to be gracious if it kills them. Yes, Bill is out there grousing that he's not sure how to sell Obama as commander-in-chief. But by Wednesday, I'm sure he will have figured it out.
What Hillary Nation has to think about is: Even on an it's-all-about-you basis, if John McCain wins in November, are you so sure that vindication of Hillary's prediction that Obama wasn't electable will be the result? It's just as likely she'd be blamed for such an outcome, which the Clintons know. That's why she will hit every mark and then some. And why, if he goes so much as cocks an eyebrow off message, we can safely assume he really has lost his last political marble.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?