Republicans were hoping for something "new" from John McCain.

They got NOTHING!!

Except the same old tired cut taxes-reduce spending-reward the rich bullshit. The same tired malarkey that has failed 3 times in nearly 30 years. If there is going to be a debate about anythig it ought to be that "trickle-down" economics has only worked for the rich and the exceedingly rich. While we're at it, we ought to start asking just who the GOP means when they talk about "ordinary people." John McCain wouldn't know, I assure you. And while he may feel bad the way a compassionate conservative might, you're still on your own at the end of the campaign stop. You still have a mortgage you can't pay, a job that might be outsourced, or a child that might go to Iraq to fight a war that everyone knows we shouldn't be fighting.

So after all the dust clears and the confetti is swept up, it's just another day in St. Paul. They might feel a little more hopeful in Denver, though.

When lamely attempting to ridicule Obama's stance on aid for Pakistan, you wrote: "One problem with this concept though is in the geopolitical world you cannot dictate to another country what they will do with the aide, whether it is humanitarian, military, political...etc, once you give it to them. These countries have their own agendas and their own interests and will do what they believe is best for them."

Nice try. Ever heard of the Global Gag Rule? Look it up. Starting with Reagan, re-enacted by W, this hegemonic policy dictates exactly what other countries can and can't do with the funding they receive thru USAID. Specifically, it prevents health care organizations from providing reproductive medicine and information to clients, even when they are only using their own (read: not U.S.) funds, if it does not jibe with the religious right's ridiculous and ineffective ideas about reproductive health care and birth control. Yet another example of religion dictating politics.

Oh, wait, though, "bucks4mccain" - you and your crowd love to dictate everyone else's morality, while loudly decrying the "islamofascists" (who, by the way, like to dicate everyone else's morality) at the same time. How ironic.

How inane to assess the McCain speech by asking "journalists" and "pundits" what they thought about it. It would be equally useless to ask Obama supporters OR those who are already committed to/leaning toward McCain.

If you want to know how that speech came off, you need to ask the people toward whom it was directed; people who haven't made up their minds yet, people who only recently started listening to the candidates, people who are apolitical and just want to elect the man they think will be the better leader. Those people, who have managed to NOT choose sides up to this point, are going to decide who to vote for based, largely, on "gut"; on how much they trust-or distrust-the candidates.

If you'd asked THOSE people about it, I think you'd have gotten a very different impression of last night's speech.

O.k. so how much pain in the ass nonesense did we have to hear about Obama's Stage Craft (Styrofoam Columns and All).

And yet McCain stupidly appears infront of yet another Green Screen Challenge custom made for Steven Colbert and not a peep from Salon?

Obama's set was designed to reach people in their homes, the people who were watching him whom he could reach and bring to his side.

McCain, still likely suspicious of this new "Tely Vision" contraption used stage craft that didn't translate at home, and probably made him look excessivly small and insignificant to the convention goers.

Come on people, if you're going to dedicate a column to Barak's Column, how about a screen about John's Screen?

That bush lowered the bar so far for him- I can't believe anyone can praise that performance. The POw thing was moving but discconected to any substance- though that seems to be how the republicans like it.

I have to go find the transcript - maybe it was just the poor delivery - I thought it was a lousy substance free speech too.

Having been married to a Vietnam Vet, I am sick and tired of hearing JM run his mouth about being a POW.

That experience does not make you ANYTHING other then another veteran, that is it. YOU ARE A VETERAN, you are NOT maverick, you are NOT a reformer. YOU are a Big Business ass kissing republican and NOTHING you say is going to change that.

p.s. that 'so-called' running mate you picked is a real loser. Her so called 'moral compass' is in the toilet and her justifying everything as the 'will' of God is beyond the pale.

McCain, deep in it.

McCain in his speech, refering to when he was shot down, said that he was falling towards the middle of a lake where a group of angry people were waiting to capture him.

Is it normal in that part of the world for groups of angry people to hang out in the middle of lakes to capture people falling from the sky?

Were they very tall people as lakes are usually very deep, or was that just a tall story or some very bad speech writing.

Gosh, wasn't he aware of what he was saying.

You both made some very interesting points about the nature of the Republican Party. In Buddhism, greed, hatred, and ignorance are collectively referred to as the "Three Poisons". I think a pretty good argument could be made that modern conservatism is rooted in these poisons.

In my post on today's Weekly Rader, I actually give McCain's speech a letter grade.

As a speech, McCain's text was less bitchy than Palin's and less humorous. But, it was more specific. He actually proposed things--it wasn't policy he put forth but reassurance.

Most notable, though, was his thinly veiled critique of the Bush administration's low points, the transgressions of Republicans like Jack Abramoff, and the hardness of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney (though none were mentioned by name). To his credit, he acknowledged that in many ways, Republicans have failed.