Color me surprised.
No, it wasn't a great speech.
No, he didn't deliver it with an orator's command.
But, nonetheless, I had two moments of very strong reaction. The first was during the video, actually--the image of his father standing at the border looking towards Hanoi is heart-wrenching. Any father can imagine and identify with the power of that mental picture, even if they can't get within a million light-years of the actual pain. And the second was as he was describing his own shame and embarassment at being broken by the North Vietnamese. The simple humility of sharing that moment of his life is a staggering. Every man (and many women) imagine that they would be strong and brave in the kind of adversity he faced, even if less than a tiny fraction of them would actually be able to survive it. But for him, an acknowledged war hero, to admit that even he didn't make on his own, and only survived the ordeal by the support and example of his brothers in arms makes any claim to humility, courage, strength or belief by Biden or Obama ring laughably false.
Not that either Obama or Biden ever try to make a claim to humility.
On a substantive level, it was nothing special. He's going back to the roots of the Republican Party, fighting corruption and shrinking government, and that's good. But that's not surprising. His one moment where he could have gone for "soaring" and "inspirational" fell pretty flat, as his call to the "great cause" of energy independence got swallowed by the hall, and he never quite made the case.
But the takeaway is what will be really interesting. The "professional" journalists will have their take, no doubt, and it will, no doubt, be somewhat dismissive. For me, I think it's the overwhelming impression that this is a great man. An unbelievably courageous, staggeringly dedicated, often-wrong, and strangely bull-headed GREAT MAN. I've admired and been impressed by politicians before (not often), but I've not had the chance in my lifetime of voting for and supporting a truly great man whose life story just humbles me.
I still disagree with him on a lot, but . . .
And, to be honest, that he would show his character with the Palin pick, that he would choose to surround himself by women who are THAT strong, is just as impressive. Strong women are a mixed blessing, and his comfort with them shows just how strong his character is.
So tonight I will be making my first donation to the McCain/Palin team--and I will include a note to the news directors of ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN indicating that their behavior over the last six days played a role in my decision. Beyond that, I'm going to take back something I said a few months ago, and go online to sign up to volunteer to help out the McCain/Palin ticket.
Maybe times like these are actually SO serious that we need to entrust them to greatness, rather than just ideological correctness. | |
