Hussein's Speech

I defer to Glenn Reynolds for the roundup.

Ann Althouse live blogged the speech:

The best speech of the convention -- it's no contest -- was given by Bill Clinton. No one else came close for me. Second best: Joe Biden. At the next level, I would put Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama.

Stephen Green: Drunkblogging Obama’s Historic Speech

8:58PM I’m sorry I didn’t practice my George Costanza, because this was the speech about nothing.

8:59PM I stand corrected: It was the speech about Bush McCain. But where was Barack Obama? I don’t know. The suit was empty.

On the other hand, the folks at The Corner seen to think it was a good, even great, speech.

Jonah Goldberg:

But, I think he'll get his bump. He's a compelling personality. He's telling a lot of Americans, particularly a lot of Democrats, what they want to hear. He's making himself into a conventional Democrat when a conventional Democrat should be running away with things. He'll get his bump.

Jay Nordlinger:

There were several strong speeches at this convention — Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Kerry, Biden, and Gore. All quite strong. The Dem party has some speakers. I wasn’t sure that Obama could best them, or equal them. But he bested them all — with flying colors.

Mickey Kaus (a Liberal) writes about
Mile High Letdown
Obama's non-memorable speech.
That hurts because these are the people that Hussein needs to win this fall.

Obama Speech React: 1) A little flat, and not just because of it's now-required State-of-the Union laundry-list passages; 2) Background off, color-wise;
...
MLK grafs also good. But not enough like those; 4) Gave voters little sense that he understands and can master the pressures--bureaucratic imperatives, unions, civil service rules-- that have often caused previous idealistic liberal presidents to fall short while sucking up taxpayer dollars.

At this point I think back to a very wise and insightful point that Rush Limbaugh made a few days ago: we are swimming around in a “theme soup” (my words) that is being cooked by the ideas of those around us, by our culture and – still to a large extent – by the drive-by-media. And those themes are that this is the Democrats’ year and that Hussein is the greatest orator of our time. So we are set-up to hear what we expect to hear when we listen to him speak.

Having these thoughts firmly planted in our heads, we believe that the Right is facing an electoral tsunami and that when Hussein gives a speech it can only be described in superlatives. As Rush said, this attitude infects everybody, even people who believe themselves to be cynical or on the Right.

So the objective measurement of both propositions will be in the election. I maintain that Hussein’s inexperience in an actual contested election will doom his campaign and that he will have negative coattails.