A Pilgrim’s Digression

I listened to most of the Democratic Convention highlights as I drove back to Washington last night.  Have I mentioned before how much I love XM radio?  No?  Ah well, that’s another blog post.

I listened from roughly seven until a little after ten, then finished by watching the remainder of Mrs. Obama’s speech on Fox while unpacking.  Conventions are, of course, mere stagecraft and theater, but as always I am a sucker for a well-produced show.  I didn’t see any of Kennedy’s speech, or the film about his life, but I could tell from what I heard that it must have been powerful.  I’ve seen pictures of him today, and I have to say he does not look like a man who recently had surgery for brain cancer.

Again, however, it’s unlikely they would have wheeled an invalid to the podium on a gurney.  Politicians become experts at fooling us.  Kennedy’s brother John stood before the public as a pillar of health and middle-aged vigor.  In fact, he was deathly ill of Addison’s disease, addicted to prescription narcotics, and suffered from back pain so severe he had to sleep on a backboard.  When not in front of the cameras, he often walked with the help of a cane or crutches.

I thought the family testimonials leading up to Mrs. Obama’s speech were also quite powerful and effective.  Her brother was an effective reference for Obama’s character, and the film of Michelle’s life, narrated by her mother, humanized her and her family in a way that the public needs to see.  I think it was Michelle who said that hers and Obama’s life stories were American stories, stories similar to those of the majority of Americans who come from humble backgrounds, in Obama’s case that of a fatherless boy raised by a mother and grandparents, and have had to work hard for every advantage.

The point was well-made: no Republican with a wealthy wife and multiple homes is going to successfully portray this man and his wife as elitist, silver spoon liberals.  They went to school on scholarships and loans, just like everyone else.

Seeing them together with their two girls also had the intended effect of planting them solidly within the American upper-middle class.  They are not just “like” us, they are us, in so many ways.

Before her convention speech, Rush Limbaugh was even floating the rumor that Michelle might be pregnant and planning to announce it during their speech.  He made it sound almost like a dirty trick, as if these liberals would go to any lengths to secure power, including getting pregnant.

So far, I think the convention is going as planned.  Radio talk show hosts and even network news anchors are trying to stir up some discord between the Clinton and Obama camps, for the sake of something to talk about, but overall I think the Democrats have to be pleased with how it has begun.

The problem for Obama is that showmanship can’t carry the day anymore.  We all know he can deliver a ripsnorter of a speech.  Now we want to get to know the man in the suit.  And time is running out for him to reveal himself.  Republicans have been slow to define Obama this season, but they are getting their act together.  McCain is on the attack, and Obama can’t be like Jackie Robinson (sorry, Reverend Jackson).  Obama has to be on the attack as well.

Finally, I wondered when the white supremacists would come out of the woodwork.  Don’t those two look like what you would expect a racist to look like?  Although these threats have to be taken seriously, somehow I doubt those two inbred morons were capable of pulling off an assassination.  I can’t imagine anyone pulling off an Oswald, as these two were planning to do, shooting Obama from the top of a building with a high-powered rifle.

Then again, Kennedy had 447 police officers assigned to his detail in Dallas, not to mention his Secret Service detail.  Yet all it took was one man in the right place at the right time, and Kennedy was killed.

I am reading Vincent Bugliosi’s Four Days in November.  The assassination of a man in whom millions have invested hope and dreams is a heartbreaking possibility to contemplate.