John Kerry: “Ask Osama bin Laden if he’s better off than he was four years ago.”
It’s like John Kerry’s been sitting on a big can of whoop-ass for 8 years.
It was a hug with Barack Obama that helped end Charlie Crist’s career. Tonight he came back for another.
Biden gets ragged on a lot in DC these days — for pretty thin reasons. He’s actually one of the sharpest, most serious people in DC. One of the key guys on foreign policy for some time. Really hope people get that.
9:42 PM: Everyone was snarking about how Biden got shortshrift not getting his own night. Nonsense. It’s obvious to everyone you needed to showcase Clinton. But man, this is a good speech. An entirely different kind of speech than Clinton gave last night. Not really about policy in any real sense. Totally different. Also very different from what President Obama will likely deliver later. But very powerful.
9:47 PM: Sort of like that song, Killing Mitt Softly.
10:25 PM: Just got the text. About 4400 words.
10:35 PM: Maybe I’m overwhelmed by recent great speeches. But so far at least it feels sort of unexceptional.
10:37 PM: I wouldn’t say the delivery is off. It’s more that the speech itself seems intentionally even-keeled rather than soaring, transactional, a series of particulars. I’m sort of curious whether it’s intentional.
10:42 PM: As I listen to this, I’m more and more convinced the tenor of the speech is strategic, intentional. I don’t think his campaign wants a soaring speech. And well, they didn’t get it.
10:46 PM: Okay, tempo picking up a bit. And with a harder edge than we’d been led to expect vis a vis Romney.
10:49 PM: Now picking up momentum.
10:51 PM: There was no sense in the writing of this speech that they wanted to keep the president above the fray, above naming his opponent.
10:52 PM: ‘Citizenship’, the counter-attack to the “You Didn’t Build This” bamboozlement.
10:55 PM: “You Did That”
10:58 PM: Building to a very strong finish.
11:02 PM: Getting masterful. We know President Obama can do great speechifying. I’m thinking more the text of the speech, the structure and the different goals it addressed at different points.