The XX Factor: What women really think.

Obama's Historic Speech in Cairo

Don't You Know It's Getting Better

Emily Y, with a couple of days to let Obama's first annual address to Congress sink in, I totally agree with you re: its uncomfortable expansiveness. He exuded a wonderful self-possession, an almost amazing glow and confidence—amazing given the uneven success of his administration's first moves and the difficult decisions he faces. OK, GOP responder Bobby Jindal's delivery was worse than Obama's—oh, God, so much worse. Indeed, his bizarrely lulling, cheesy mantra "Americans can do anything!" made Jindal sound like a child therapist.

But wasn't Obama's message kind of the same thing? Yes, he made rhetorical nods to sacrifice, but to sacrifices (like relying more on alternative energy sources) that aren't much of a sacrifice at all for the progressive-minded. Both Obama's and Jindal's expansive optimism that Americans Can Do Anything!, even cure cancer while crawling out of a deep recession, reminded me of the every-day-just-goes-up-and-up mood of ... the subprime mortgage bubble.

Masterful and Worrisome

Down to Earth

He kept it down to earth tonight, which was the plan and a good idea—too much making people swoon would prove John McCain's charge that what Obama really is is a celebrity. And Obama nicely turned away the celebrity dig with a description of how he came from striving people who worked for everything they ever got. But he is at his most interesting, most compelling when he talks about himself, which is an unusual gift. When he switched to his policy plans, the specifics of what he wants to actually do for the country—he will make us energy independent in 10 years, for example—I just thought, "Sure you will." During the past couple of days, as both Bill Clinton and Joe Biden tried to talk about what Obama has done in his life to make us believe that he is ready to be president, you can't help but be struck by how little that adds up to. In the biggest speech to the country he has ever made, he didn't even try to list the accomplishments that make him qualified for the presidency. Yet, as you listen to him, strangely, that doesn't seem to matter.

"I Have a Plan"

On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Barack Obama answered back tonight with a simple, “I Have a Plan.” He’s distilled the trademark soaring rhetoric and big ideas into a handful of crisp one-liners: “The change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.” And “America, we cannot turn back.” But beyond that, it was a policy speech: Wonk 101. A point-by-point refutation of the claim that the man is all empty talk. He uncorked the soaring bits only at the very end and seemingly only to remind us that if he wanted to he could do it again the next time.

Obama deflected all the Swift Boat slime with a flick of his wrist: “If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. ... You make a big election about small things.” He went and clocked McCain, who both “doesn’t get it” and forgets that “we all put our country first.” And as this convention sometimes seemed to gasp for air amid all the vast, monster egos, Obama was smart enough to stop talking about himself. “What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.”

This was a strong speech and probably not an easy one for Obama, who might have preferred to light up the night sky like he did in ‘04. But for my money, he reminded everyone who’s ever been blown away by Barack Obama that being blown away by Barack Obama is not a one-, or two-, or three-shot deal. It’s something we could, and should maybe start to count on.