Home Run

It's not often anymore that you get a stellar political speech in America, save for some of the neo-fascist conservative rantings whose sheer spectacle you can't help but gawk at from time to time. Occasionally, you get a choleric Howard Dean setting Sacramento alight in March 2003, days before the Iraq war, berating Democrats for giving America away to the fundamentalists. But normally you're stuck with middle-of-the-road political praddle, not unlike that exemplified by Bush himself in an interview (begins at the 15.00 mark) this summer in Ireland. (Note: Bush was lucky he had a fairly incompetent interviewer. Not so for Prime Minister Blair last February.). But then, occasionally, you get young politicans like Barack Obama speaking at the Democratic National Convention ... and bringing down the house (text transcript here).  Turn your political cynicism off for fifteen minutes and check it out -- this one is a keeper.