I trust you watched the President’s convention President’s acceptance speech last week and Michelle’s speech and the VP’s — and lots more. Certainly President Clinton’s. I’m posting this column early hoping it might help you find time to watch any you may have missed.
Most of the scores of Convention speeches were not broadcast by the networks . . . so here are YouTube links to three of my favorites:
First, retiring Congressman Barney Frank on “Myth” Romney (9 minutes).
Second, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm on cars (7 minutes). (In Mitt’s world, cars get the elevator, workers get the shaft.) This woman is fired up! Is she always like this? I don’t know her, but was sitting on the podium as she spoke, and — as you can largely but not entirely tell from the video — it was pandemonium.)
Third, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro’s keynote address (18 minutes), longer than the other two, but, I thought, a wonderful life story.
“RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY”
And good heavens — I certainly had not planned to subject you to this again — but here is a headline in The Atlantic . . . The Speech You Missed That Captures the Ruthless Efficiency of the DNC . . . which I clicked on when someone sent it to me, more than a little curious to see whose speech it was and to watch it, only to find out that I had in fact, well, delivered it.
For the record, there was no ruthless efficiency here. I simply emailed the text to the “speech writer” assigned to me; he made some good suggestions for trimming it; and there ended the ruthless efficiency of the DNC. (My assigned speech writer is not employed by the DNC; he’s President and CEO of a global micro-finance organization, Accion, who has been volunteering with the Campaign.) Indeed, it is basically the same speech I gave in Los Angeles in 2000, in Boston in 2004, and in Denver in 2008. (I am nothing if not lazy.) Each time, in the same slim time slot, I tried to link the concept of “net worth AND self-worth” — what good is net worth without self worth? — and to note that the Democratic Party advances both. The difference is that, for whatever reason, it got noticed a little this time – as here, in The Atlantic.
The comments that follow the clip are in the main inordinately generous, but I love the one about the Democratic imposition of sharia law — and the rejoinders.
Is this a great country, or what?
Oh. And seriously: if you missed it, here, again, the link to President Clinton’s nominating speech. President Obama joked he should appoint President Clinton to his Cabinet as “Secretary of Explaining Stuff.” (He knows something about job creation.) So treat yourself to an enjoyable little piece of our country’s history.
