danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

9:41 PM – This parade of regular folks might seem on paper like a good idea, but some of them are embarrassing to watch.  Except this last guy named Barney Smith.  His line about wanting a president that puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney was great, and even better was the 75,000 in the crowd chanting “Barney! Barney!”  Still, while I feel for these people–who have done everything that a person is supposed to do, and still fallen on hard times–I can imagine that there are many people who oppose Obama who will see such speeches as an example of how Democrats are all whiny losers.

9:53 PM – Damn it, PBS, I think I see Michael McDonald singing in the background while Gwen Ifill is interviewing the head of the NAACP.

10:06 PM – The Barack Obama movie!

10:10 PM – That movie was okay, I guess, but not nearly as good as the Ken Burns film for Senator Kennedy.

10:59 PM – Senator Obama’s speech was good.  It wasn’t as riveting to me as John Kerry’s was last night, nor was it as poetic as Obama’s speeches can be, but I am glad that a national audience was able to see it.

So, that’s the convention.  I’ll probably write about the Republican convention next week.

Filed under: Politics, Television on August 28th, 2008 | No Comments »

TPM has John Kerry’s speech posted on their YouTube stream, and if you haven’t seen it yet–and you probably didn’t see it last night unless, like me, you were watching PBS or C-Span–you really ought to.  If you were crushed like I was by Kerry’s defeat in 2004, and had wished more than anything that he had just been more forceful in defense of his reputation and ideas, his speech last night will make you wonder why he didn’t.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics on August 28th, 2008 | No Comments »