Obama!

My initial reaction is that Obama was at his best when he was drawing sharp contrasts between himself and the Republican Party. Directly confronting the charge that he's a celebrity, and challenging McCain in a head-on debate over the war, were necessary strokes along that line. I also liked when he said, "They make a big election about small things." He was calling them out on the pettiness of their political style.

But after raising my hope that he would follow that line of thought further, he meandered back into his own narrative. And one thing he did not do was point out the disconnect between Republican rhetoric and actual Republican values. For example, saying you're pro-freedom and being pro-torture. Or saying you're anti-elitist while passing wartime tax cuts for millionaires. He spoke of their failures, and he hinted at their cynicism, but he didn't call them on their hypocrisy.

Obama's narrative is compelling, but I think this convention has been at its weakest when it's fallen into narrative mode. Those convinced by the Obama story are already voting Democrat, and those left cold by it aren't going to buy into some rhetorical sap. The constant, droning emphasis on the sufferring of average Americans also strikes me as tone deaf. Yes, many are suffering. But many more are not directly suffering, and they are the ones who need to vote Democrat in order for Obama to be the next president. Those are the voters that need to come to despise the GOP and all its works. Those are the voters that need to understand that a vote for McCain isn't just a vote against change, it's a vote for failure. And not just failure in the concrete world of policy, but the moral failure characterized by a party that for eight gruelling years put its own interests ahead of the country.

I want Obama to shame the Republicans.

A Post on Israel

Writing over at South Jerusalem, the awesomely named Gershom Gorenberg has an interesting take on the long, slow death of Israel's Labor Party. And as I mentioned back in March, I think Olmert has negated the rationale for the Kadima Party.

Unfortunately, that leaves only one large party with viability in Israel. And it ain't the cute and cuddly teddy bear party.

John McCain as Blogger

Jonathan Chait zings Andrew Sullivan by noting that he has a lot in common with John McCain, in the sense that both men view world events in moral and ideological, rather than data-driven, terms.

It's a fair point, but Chait loses his mind when he suggests that John McCain would make a great blogger. The obvious dig here is blogger, not president. But of course John McCain would be a horrible blogger, as anyone who thinks about it a moment would conclude. Assuming he figures out how to log onto the internet, would anyone be able to stand the constant repetition of hawkish boilerplate and analogies to POW life? It would be an unending, digitalized stream of grandpa's "when I was young" rants.

This hints at something deeper, which is that Sullivan and McCain are actually quite different in their political styles. What makes Sullivan a compelling read is that he regularly cross-examines himself. Viewing the world in moral terms is his starting point, wheras for McCain (and Bush) it is the end point. This has led Sullivan into a commendable fit of apostasy, which is a strength, not the weakness that Chait would have you suppose it is.

Shit!

I had my phone on me all day. I kept giving it furtive glances, hoping I had missed a ring. I even checked my voice mail a few times.

But no. I'm not Barack Obama's running mate.

What about you?