"Recover From That Disaster"

Tonight at 10 p.m. I'm going to pour myself some gin over the rocks, switch the TV off of football (Bengals-Indianapolis) and over to the convention and let myself bask in the greatest speech of my generation/lifetime. Ewell Blackwell will be pitching. Ted Williams will be batting. Stan Musial will be batting. Seaver will be pitching. Herb Score will be pitching (before he got hit in the face). Frank Dale will be the Editor of the Enquirer. Life will be ahead. Endless possibilities will exist. The Ceder River will flow again into the Ohio River.

Why am I so sure it will be the greatest speech of my generation?
Did Ewell, Ted, Stan, Seaver, Herb, Frank, ever let us down when it counted?

Arletha came over last night to my office/home. To push me on her case, which is about the only way I would have spent another minute on it, if you must know. We had a profitable hour, with me literally doing the research as she talked.

She is a beautiful 58-year old African-American with a tough approach betelling the life she has led in Cincinnati.

Although she has a new car now, a bizarre story that figures in her case, she is two payments behind. Although she has an apartment now, how long can that last? She is single.

"Welfare doesn't go to a single person anymore."

"I go to the Dollar Store and buy those cans of chicken salad with cranberries with the wheat crackers and spoon. That's what I live on."




Editorial
Mr. Obama’s Moment

Published: August 27, 2008

Barack Obama takes the stage Thursday night for the speech of his career after getting a big boost and a big challenge from his former rival, Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and Mr. Obama’s running mate, Joseph Biden.

Senator Clinton’s address, perhaps the best of her career, provided the long-awaited call for her supporters to back Senator Obama. It did something more: It offered the rousing case for the Democratic Party’s core values and strengths that had been largely missing from the convention.
Mr. Obama needs to be just as clear about what he stands for, and about why — in such dire times — Americans should trust him and his party with their futures.
On Tuesday night, Mrs. Clinton passionately argued that the Democratic Party believes in health care for all, progressive taxation, Social Security, fighting against poverty and for gay rights. The Republicans, she said, support a “government where the privileged come first and everyone else comes last.”
She said that Mr. Obama would “end the war in Iraq responsibly.” On that, like so many aspects of foreign policy, Mr. Obama and his opponent, Senator John McCain, have profoundly different visions that American voters need to understand in detail.
On Wednesday, Mr. Biden and Mr. Clinton continued that argument, offering their rousing endorsements of Mr. Obama as commander in chief.
Mr. Clinton’s speech was not just a reminder of how dazzling he can be, when he’s not pouting. It offered a frightening vision of the many dangers this country faces — global warming, nuclear proliferation, terrorism — and how much its position has been weakened “by too much unilateralism and too little cooperation.”
He promised that Mr. Obama would “work for an America with more partners and fewer adversaries,” to share burdens and leverage its influence. He said that while Mr. Obama “will choose diplomacy first and military force as a last resort,” when he could not “convert adversaries into partners, he will stand up to them.”
Now that others have helped set the stage, Mr. Obama must demonstrate his own passion and policy mastery. He needs to show that he has his own plan for solving this country’s many problems, from reviving the economy to rebuilding a broken military. That is especially true if Mr. Obama is to win the votes of moderate Republicans. Many recognize that President Bush’s terms have been a disaster but still see the Democrats the way Republicans have painted them: the party of a weak defense and economy-killing taxes.
This country certainly can use true bipartisanship — something it has not seen under Mr. Bush. But conventions, like elections, are partisan events, where candidates begin to define themselves for voters. At the 1932 Democratic convention, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a “New Deal.” At the 1980 Republican convention, Ronald Reagan declared his revolution against “overgrown and overweight” government.
Without such clear choices, elections end up where they are now, wars of attack ads with voters focused on labels and minutiae.
Mr. Obama got to Denver in large measure on his ability to inspire Democratic voters. He has a strong case to make now against the Republicans’ claim to be the party of prosperity at home and strength abroad. After eight years of President Bush, the country is neither prosperous at home nor respected abroad — and increasingly not even feared.
But it is not enough to declare Mr. Bush’s terms a disaster. Mr. Obama’s task is to make the case unequivocally that his ideas and his party’s ideas are the best way to recover from that disaster.