I’m the tiniest bit hesitant to open another thread on a subject that’s been locked down, but I think that was a fine display of oratory fireworks and worthy of comment, and I’m confident that it can be done without incurring the Wrath of Mod.
Let’s try to avoid the disaster of I Love Me, Vol I’s thread, okay? That means no bad languagem whether it’s intended for general intensification of superlatives, or as invective, or prurient comment, or whatever. In fact, let’s establish some ground rules and limit discussion to the 25 minute period in which the man was speaking, okay?
Okay.
That was the most amazing display of speechifying I’ve seen in a long, long time-- Both in terms of writing and delivery. I’m Canadian, okay? That sort of stuff isn’t supposed to get our sap up, even when it’s related to things closer to home.
“Send me.” Brilliant. From the humility with which he started that bit, to the battle cry he turned it into.
“Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values.” Amen.
Anyway, a quick submission for the hamsters and I take a break.
I was really, really blown away by that speech. Did I mention that?
Whaddyall think? Any UK Dopers get a chance to see that, by the way?
Could you expound a bit for those of us who missed it? Send him where? Also, who wrote it? It is good to see that the Southern accent has become an acceptable vehicle of delivery.
He’s the best in the business at the whole motivating speech thing, and he’s even better when speaking to an entirely friendly audience. He kind of declined in quality during his second term when he seemed to be trying a little too hard to be “presidential” - clearly, the folksy appeal is better for him. And even by his standards, he hit the mark last night. One of the better convention openers I can remember, up there with Guy Vander Jagt’s “I can” speech in 1980 (which, unfortunately, only the political junkies got to see).
I’d also highly highly HIGHLY recommend watching Al Gore’s speech, Jimmy Carter’s speech, and Rev. David Alston’s speech. Very few people had a chance to see these, and all 3 were intelligent, mesmerising, thoughtful, and inspiring.
Yes, even Al Gore was inspiring. He’s not the same man as he was during the 2000 election. While this speech was toned down from from the outspoken, angry and firey speeches he’s been giving in the last year, it still packed a whollop.
Jimmy Carter was speaking from wisdom and experience. He had a terrible presidency, but he was and is a good, decent man. He spoke from the heart.
Rev. David Alston served with John Kerry in Vietnam, and his booming oratory gave a sharp and telling insight into John Kerry the man.
None of these speeches were shown on most channels because, I assume, it was assumed that they’d be droning and excruciatingly boring. I’m sure that some who did hear them would say that anyway, but only if they weren’t listening, or if they couldn’t see past their own partisanship.
It was a night of brilliant speeches, and Bill Clinton’s great speech wasn’t the only one that every voter needs to hear.
I just caught it on C-Span, and frankly, I wasn’t impressed. I thought, for example, that mentioning fiscal responsibility and providing “free” health care for everyone in the same sentence was grossly naive. And since he likely knows better, it might even be dishonest.
Ah, but did he invent any new words? Anyone can recycle old words others have already prepared, but creating totally new words is what takes real talent.
It seems to me that if the gentle person may opinine that the speech was “brilliant”, then I may opine that it was naive. An observation does not constitute a debate.
I saw the highlights on the news this morning. Clinton sounded good (and this is coming from someone who didn’t like him as president). He’s definitely a good speaker.
Gore sounded like he’s still bitter about the 2000 election. Hillary grated on my nerves, just like she always did.
As well he should be. As well every American should be, no matter your political stripe. Someday the Supreme Court going around appointing presidents may just bite Republicans in the ass too.
What a great delivery. He was calm, self-deprecating, personable, and personal. Wife and I looked at each other and said, “I want to vote for him again!”
Actually, this is the sort of stuff I was hoping to see – what people think the strong or weak points of the speech were – how different people heard it.
Lib’s post gives an insight into what may be a flaw in the speech. People with extreme right-wing views on taxation, etc. might well take exception to hearing the words “health-care” and “fiscal responsibilty” placed close together. I don’t think it’s a huge problem, because I think most people (with the exception of the Ayn Rand crowd) will have heard what he actually said, which was about nothing as radical as “free” healthcare. He said more affordable health-care. There are many approaches one can take if more affordable health-care is a policy goal. (Especially in the United States.) A lot of them aren’t even vaguely socialist. I think there are more people who like the idea of affordable healthcare than think it’s irresponsible to consider any government involvement with health services. And I don’t think unregulated, free-market healthcare advocates are ever going to vote for a democrat, so no big misstep.
Lib’s comment did remind me of a :smack: moment in Al Gore’s speech, though-- when he went directly from an what seemed framed to appeal to the Green voters (“Kerry had the best record on protecting the environment from polluters…”) to a tongue trip in which he said “He was never afraid to take on the hard issues that few others wanted to touch, like exposing the threat of ecoter… narcoterrorism…” I swear I could actually hear some Naderites out there being unpersuaded.
In that case, he’s actually been in the top tax bracket for the entire 8 years of his presidency, contrary to what he said. Most of the “cuts” he talked about were in fact shifts to block grants to allow states to have more flexibility in how they spend the money – in fact, federal funding has gone up for almost everything, much to the consternation of conservatives. And I sure as hell don’t think a guy who sat on his ass while al Qaeda was attacking American targets around the world and a genocide was occuring in Rwanda ought to be telling anyone what our military should or should not be doing. And speaking of using the military, he (correctly) used it in the Balkans with NATO but without UN sanction (urged on by the Governor of Vermont, whose name doesn’t come to me right now – Jean? Something like that) and in Somalia unilaterally, so I don’t need him getting sanctimonious about consulting with allies or the UN, either. Pure, unadulterated claptrap from our generation’s absolute master of it.
I thought it was a great speech. I even got kinda misty thinking about the good old days. I’d vote for him again, if I could.
The speech made me wonder: how do republicans justify the tremendous deficit with their fiscally conservative posturings? Obviously any democrat is likely to be unhappy, but how can republicans look at the last four years and think that the White House has done anything other than a terrible job, especially with respect to the party’s fiscal ideology (gun laws excepted)?
And was it just me, or did he not look just a wee bit wistful as he looked out at the crowd after his speech? He looked pretty damn nostalgic gazing out over that crowd at the end there. I think he was definitely re-living the past for a second there.
Not being either right-wing on taxation (no one has taxed people more than Republicans) nor part of the Ayn Rand crowd (she called classical liberals “hippies of the right”) nor advocating an unregulated free-market (I believe that noncoercion should be strictly enforced), I’m afraid I bear little resemblance to anything that appeared in your post after “Lib’s post gives an insight into what may be a flaw in the speech.”
But Manny is right. Clinton has been in the top tax bracket for quite some time. Interestingly, it is thanks to a Democrat, John Kennedy, that Clinton’s income is not taxed at 70% the way it would have been in 1960.
