The Blog House

The Internets are all abuzz over the first night of the Democratic National Convention.

Steve Besen at the Political Animal was moved by Sen. Ted Kennedy's surprise appearance:

Rhetorically, Kennedy's voice still boomed, and his message still resonated: "There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination -- not merely victory for our party, but renewal for our nation. And this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans. So with Barack Obama, and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on." Kennedy seemed frailer than we're accustomed to seeing him, and his eyes rarely strayed from the prompter at the back of the arena. I'm pretty sure those watching couldn't have cared less. His speech, like his career, was a triumph.

Matt Welsh at Reason said the Democrats missed a golden opportunity to bring the fight to the Republicans and John McCain:

The Democratic Party has just blown almost one-quarter of its convention on some of the most tepid personal-trivia testimonials and no-really-they-watched-Brady-Bunch crapolaI have heard since my last Amway convention. Only with much less spirit. Wait, your mother loved you? IZ VOAT DIMOKRAT! The Republicans kicked the stuffing out of the Dems in the last year's convention season, in part due to an uproarious and combative opening night. Can Democrats even hit a ball off a tee without irritating the hell out of everybody?

Andrew Sullivan was blown away by Michelle Obama:

One of the best, most moving, intimate, rousing, humble, and beautiful speeches I've heard from a convention platform. Maybe she should be running for president. You don't need any commentary from me. This was a home-run. And sincere. Thank God that in the end, the truth struggles out there. Just look at her mother's face.

John McCain was on the Tonight Show last night for the thirteenth time. A little bird points out who else has been on the couch with Leno that many times: Pamela Anderson, Dr. Phil, Larry the Cable Guy, Simon Cowell, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Schwarzenegger has been on twelve times; Obama has been on once.

Rich Lowry at the National Review's The Corner said that Michelle Obama accomplished what she set out to do:

Michelle Obama's speech was quite effective. Here were the five keys to its successes:

1) Make Barack One of Us. She gave us an affecting portrait of her own family, like so many families in America, and then said of Barack, "even though he had this funny name, even though he'd grown up all the way across the continent in Hawaii, his family was so much like mine."

2) Emphasize the Working Class. Michelle's parents were working class, as she was "raised on the South Side of Chicago by a father who was a blue collar city worker, and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me." So were Barack's grandparents: "He was raised by grandparents who were working class folks just like my parents, and by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills just like we did." So were the people he tried to help in Chicago as a community organizer: "The people gathered together that day were ordinary folks doing the best they could to build a good life. They were parents living paycheck to paycheck; grandparents trying to get by on a fixed income; men frustrated that they couldn't support their families after their jobs disappeared." And so are the people Michelle has met on the campaign trail: "People who work the day shift, kiss their kids goodnight, and head out for the night shift -- without disappointment, without regret -- that goodnight kiss a reminder of everything they're working for."

4) Score One for the Patriarchy. Fatherhood, old-fashioned fatherhood, was a stirring theme. She talked movingly of her father: "My dad was our rock. Although he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his early thirties, he was our provider, our champion, our hero." And near the end, she talked of Obama as father, that figure -- should he live up to his responsibilities -- that is so deeply reassuring. She described him returning with her and their first daughter from the hospital, "determined to give her everything he struggled so hard for himself, determined to give her what he never had: the affirming embrace of a father."