Barack Obama met his moment in Denver on Thursday.

The media feverishly raised expectations for Obama's address, while Republicans had relentlessly pre-branded the large grassroots gathering as some kind of celebrity spectacle. From the moment he marched on stage, however, Obama beat inflated expectations and dispatched his GOP detractors.

His speech was both soaring and chilling, imbued with heartening idealism and wonkish detail; it deftly called for a new, civil politics while also issuing a call to arms against the lethal failures of the incumbent administration. Zeroing in on his Republican opponent, Obama honored John McCain's integrity while questioning his temperament. Declining to impugn the motives for McCain's many policy reversals, Obama simply savaged the Republican's recent embrace of an elitist economic agenda. Obama rejected the political ploys of fear and deceit, but used McCain's platform and recent statements to depict the Washington fixture as an out-of-touch figure from a bygone era, clueless to middle class struggles, ignorant of the definition of rich in the federal tax code, and generally stuck "grasping at the ideas of the past."

After shredding a conservative ideology that tells Americans "you're on your own," Obama discussed his vision of governance as a "promise" to help citizens tackle "that which we cannot do for ourselves." "The idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation," Obama said, is "the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper." That promise, that mutual responsibility, anchored the alternative that Obama detailed on Thursday.

Comments (8)

1. Again, my favorite line from the speech (and one that McCain-to-help-Hillary supporter FRANKGRITS needs to answer)...

   "What does it say about your judgement that you think George W. Bush was right over ninety percent of the time?"

   Now, McCain has to go into HIS Convention, either contradicting Obama and proclaiming his independence even opposition to Bush, but pissing off his base ...

   or he has to DEFEND voting with Bush over 90% of the time in St. Paul and let it hurt him with the 70% of America that doesn't like Bush!

   Posted by Maskdelta at 08/29/2008 @ 08:46am

2. Absolutely, Maskdelta. To quote one of McCain's buddies, he's in "deep doo-doo."

   Posted by bobforer at 08/29/2008 @ 09:02am

3. Wasn't somebody on this list writing that the Clinton delegates were gonna sew this thing up for Senator Clinton? What happened to that?

   Posted by onthehelm at 08/29/2008 @ 09:41am

4. Posted by onthehelm at 08/29/2008 @ 09:41am

   Just one of the NUMEROUS FRANKGRITS' predictions that fell by the wayside...

   keep that in mind, now that he's trying to elect McCain so HRC can have her shot at 2012.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 08/29/2008 @ 09:48am

5. JOHN calling McCain elitist? JOHN of the party who gave new meaning to the term? Please come up with your own original insult JOHN, stop using everyone else's That cheap.

   Thats like Dems laughingly asking Tax Cutters "whose going to pay for it"?

   Posted by CHIP THORNTON at 08/29/2008 @ 10:24am

6. The speech was fine, but my rhetorical expectations were not exceeded ("Eight is enough"?).

   As for substance, Obama landed some very good blows; but the promise that he is going to pay for his programs by "going through every line in the budget, etc., etc.," was not encouraging: it's a classic Republican line, and will remain in substance a Republican approach unless and until Democrats find a way to sell defense spending as an area open for cuts. Given the dynamics of this campaign, it's very unlikely Obama will do this, before or (if he wins) after the election (n.b., it's actually one of the few areas where McCain has, on occasion, actually lived up to his overblown reputation as a "mavaerick").

   Posted by iamcfar at 08/29/2008 @ 1:01pm

7. I have heard several times that That Obama believes that change comes from the buttom up not from the top down. Now if this so called great agent of change really believes this why is he running for the TOP office in the country. If he really does believe this and is elected he will not be in a position to effect change.

   Posted by middleborn at 08/29/2008 @ 1:55pm

8. Was a really good speech IMHO ... and ripped McSame a new one

   Posted by leftofcenter at 08/29/2008 @ 3:00pm