"The speech" will be known as one of the greatest speeches in US history. Is this enough? Was the Gettysburg Address enough? Was MLK's "I had a dream" enough? Clearly not.

I personally thought the speech was kickass and ballsy. But I'm reluctant to place it up there with the top 10 heavy hitters of all time, though I must admit Obama might be better at this than I suspected.

Just like a vat of Kimchee that you bury for a year, or a bottle of fine wine you cellar for 20, it will take age to reveal the quality of that speech.

The speeches that you mentioned are famous because they went beyond words, they altered the consciousness of listeners, and they can still do that to us today. They can reach out across time and speak to us now. It's really too early to know if his speech is that good.

I see you are trying to raise the level of discourse. Good luck with that. For awhile I succumbed to the trolls. Now I just ignore most of them. Yeah, well, I am reaching some sort of nihilistic point lately. To be a snob, what really bothers me is not the positions or the anger, or even the hatred, but the poor execution, the lack of craft. I feel that sometimes I'm helping people become better trolls. The horror.

However, the level of spite thrown around here has gotten me to thinking that Obama may be overly optimistic in his hope that we can get along better and that people with different opinions can find common just causes.

I used to think that liberal was synonymous with open-minded. Salon and its readers don't look too open minded to me. Yeah, it's hard to discuss anything with complexity. If racism, sexism, and now ageism are the only analytic tools at hand, it's going to be a meager conversation. I think the general will come down to a war of soundbites. Obama's team seems pretty good so far at cooking them up. And they will have money to burn. There is this meme going around featuring McCain as Mr. Magoo. He did sort of stumble through the primaries after having been left for dead. Now he can't get the Shia and Sunnis straight with Iran. I wonder if it will stick. Certain people were never going to vote for Hillary or Obama, even if they might've voted for somebody like Biden. Will those type of people stay home, and can the dems get enough new people into the process? That's how I frame it at this time.

I must say though, as a writer I find the whole Grandma issue such a non-starter. In order to produce fiction, there isn't anyone I wouldn't throw under the bus. Memoir is a little trickier. Less just say that I am planning for some members of my family not to speak to me if I get mine written and published. Oh well.

That speech reminded me of my grandmother, to be honest. But now I'm never going to share any type of juicy bits with you. Who knows what would happen to them. And I wouldn't have any media rights. meh.

I've been thinking again of one of my favorite (ok I really have only one or two) Milton quotes:

Better reign in Hell,

Than serve in Heaven.

--The Devil, Paradise Lost

What I'm really interested in knowing, is how much diplomatic experience Hillary gained as First Lady is Tactical, and how much is Strategic. Both are important and both are necessary. And I would agree that if a person is in a tactical role, the less they know the better (need to know) and a clearance probably isn't required. If they are playing a strategic role, then it seems hard to believe that access to restricted information isn't required.

I personally believe that Hillary could have gained a lot of good experience working it in Ireland, though it sounds mostly tactical to me. If she developed any friendships or close tie to any of our strategic allies during her years as First Lady, then that is really important and a huge plus. I think the burden of proof is on her to tell us what she did, even though I realise that it may put her in a sort of bind. Democracy isn't that convienent.

Hillary has been on the Armed Services Committee since 2003. McCain first joined the Armed Services Committee in 1987 [I think he's been on it continuously, but I wouldn't swear to it] and he has commanded troops in the military.

If she can't publically provide more details, I don't think she will compare favoraby with McCain on this point.

If I'm missing something, let me know

How wonky was that explanation? Maybe a pro could shave down that word count from 11 to 5 or so.

For example, the American public will hear a lot about how National Journal ranked Obama the most liberal member of the Senate in its annual survey published this year, an assessment of voting records that is hard to refute without sounding wonky.

Bet you can't wait for the next Maureen Dowd column.

Thanks for reminding me. Forgot it is Wednesday.

Maureen can write and tells a good story and has wicked humour. Eventually she gets around to skewering everbody.

What's your point?

[he] can actually hold a conversation that doesn't involve cue-cards.

He does seem to need cue-cards or a handy dandy Liebermann to discuss Iran and the Shia, Sunnia, al-Queda, well nevermind.