{"id":12930,"date":"2008-09-04T21:24:53","date_gmt":"2008-09-05T04:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/09\/04\/liveblogging-the-mccain-rnc-speech.html"},"modified":"2008-09-04T21:24:53","modified_gmt":"2008-09-05T04:24:53","slug":"liveblogging_the_mccain_r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/04\/liveblogging_the_mccain_r.html","title":{"rendered":"Liveblogging the McCain RNC Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

[I came in a few minutes late, but I think I caught most of it.]<\/em> <\/p>\n

John’s not a very good speaker. He does best when he’s chatting. He does worse when trying to be a “speech-making” guy. He does much worse when trying to be snarky.<\/p>\n

John didn’t learn (from Colbert) the danger of having a blue or green screen behind him.<\/p>\n

The crowd went wild whenever he talked about safe stuff – war, guns, America, apple pie. The crowd was much more subdued when he talked about socking it to big business, to ear marks, to actually cleaning up Washington, to bipartisanship, to anything that smacked of progressive politics or “maverick” stuff. <\/p>\n

But they were more than happy to boo whenever he referred critically (and awkwardly) to Obama. <\/p>\n

Though, overall, the crowd’s enthusiasm did seem to die down the more policy-minded he got, even though he was fairly short on specifics. <\/p>\n

His grin looks … really uncomfortably odd. He only flashes it when slamming Obama, almost shame-facedly. <\/p>\n

The cameras are (unfairly, but it’s still real) lots of people who are … slumping in their chairs. Using their Blackberries. Sitting with their eyes closed. <\/p>\n

Front row folks clapping mechanically, unsmiling.<\/p>\n

Oh, thank heavens, I was afraid we’d go through a speech without hearing about his POW experience.<\/p>\n

It’s a bit odd, but moving, to hear McCain say, “My country saved me … and I will fight for her as long as I have breath, so help me God.” Really. That he then broke into one of those cheap grins.<\/p>\n

“THE MAVRICK!” shouts one sign [sic].<\/p>\n

There was some really good stuff he said. Even inspiring. If he was just giving a speech, that would be fine. But everything he said except for those inspiring, earnest items was awkard, flabby, dull, short on details and just unconvincing. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[I came in a few minutes late, but I think I caught most of it.]  John’s not a very good speaker. He does best when he’s chatting. He does worse…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2008"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131705,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/10\/02\/stay-classy-rudy.html","url_meta":{"origin":12930,"position":0},"title":"Stay classy, Rudy","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 2-Oct-16 2:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A financial trade group has apologized to its members (and CCed the media) for Rudy Giuliani's unscripted comments at a speaking event. 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He talked...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1685,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/26\/keeping_a_grip.html","url_meta":{"origin":12930,"position":2},"title":"Keeping a grip","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 26-Nov-01 8:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've seen this story flashed around a number of places today. Briefly, a student activist with a poster portraying Bush as a hangman (from his support for the death penalty...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133954,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/protecting-our-innocent-children-against-those-savage-inhuman-others.html","url_meta":{"origin":12930,"position":3},"title":"Protecting our innocent children against those savage, inhuman Others","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Jul-17 5:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow.I knew Trump had gone off to Ohio for another of his quasi-campaign rallies where he gets to whip up the crowd and get them to cheer his name and boost his ego. He tweeted about it enthusiastically, after all. [1]What I hadn't heard were some of the bits and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28765,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/04\/bits-and-bobs-from-2012-08-04.html","url_meta":{"origin":12930,"position":4},"title":"Bits and Bobs from 2012-08-04","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 4-Aug-12 2:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Fun stuff Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Take-a-Gander\u00a0- Olympic photography. Fancy-shmancy thermostat\u00a0- Yeah, this sort of thing gets me to thinking. Often with expensive results. WFMAD Day 3\u00a0- More writing exercises. Mister Clean\u00a0- How to get men interested in house cleaning. Simon's Cat is Everycat\u00a0- \"The wrong\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/junk-drawer-300x252.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30231,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/11\/just-to-show-americans-arent-the-only-ones-with-lizard-brains.html","url_meta":{"origin":12930,"position":5},"title":"Just to show Americans aren't the only ones with Lizard-Brains","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Sep-12 9:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier today I talked about how fear can (as +George Wiman\u00a0put it) trigger your lizard brain to act irrationally, frantically, desperately, and not necessarily in your best interest.\u00a0It sure seems that getting worked up to violence -- against property or, worse, people, because someone in some other tribe has dissed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}