When filth is not enough

[WhollyHeretic]

I had friends complain that Barack Obama's TV ad Wednesday night was "dull," but I thought it worked. Maybe that's because I spent the middle of the day getting ready for MSNBC's "Hardball," where I got to hear disgraced GOP congressman Tom DeLay smear Obama as "a radical, and at the very best, he is a socialist." They used to call DeLay "the exterminator," because that was his business before he became a politician. Watching him Wednesday, I started thinking, maybe it takes vermin to know vermin. The Republicans are running a low-road campaign, but this was real filth coming from DeLay.

DeLay, of course, was one of the most corrupt, hypocritical and divisive pillars of the 1990s GOP revolution, and he's hugely to blame for his party's sad fortunes today. But he still gets around the cable shows, and to see him on "Hardball," just a half hour before I was on, spewing hate about Obama, was kind of unsettling. Obama's a radical and a Marxist, he insisted, more radical than Al Gore, John Kerry or Barney Frank. He threw out Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. Ultimately I lost track of the times he called Obama a "Marxist." But appearing right after DeLay, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz mopped the floor with him, to Matthews' apparent surprise and enjoyment. Obama should send her flowers. I should send her flowers.

So that experience shaped the way I watched Obama's 30-minute infomercial, and it was a perfect tonic. Maybe it was a dull for a moment or two, but Obama can stand to be a little dull, when he has the likes of DeLay and other vicious hit men tarring him as a dark and dangerous Marxist socialist "redistributionist." He's fighting for the right to be one of us: normal, sometimes dull and yet presidential, and his ad did it all tonight. I'll never forget Juanita Stewart, the retired Ohio woman without health insurance, trying to straighten out her arthritis-crippled fingers, watching her 72-year-old husband, Larry, return to work to pay for her medicine. (For the record, more people e-mailed me saying that they cried watching that scene than that the ad was "dull.")

http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/election_2008/2008/10/30/obama_clinton/

This piece from Salon sums up how I felt last night.

The Republicans have been tossing some vile shit this year and the Delay interview on Hardball is one of the strongest examples of these. My wife and I were yelling at the TV.

[AtomicKitten]

1. Obama's "dullness" contrasts sharply with the GOP venom.

Purposely. Strategically.

[WhollyHeretic]

2. McCain's attack ad that played between the Obama ad and the World Series

played right into what Obama was doing last night. That 1/2 was nothing but a positive yet somber message and McFalin ran an attack ad right after. That is very jarring to see right after such a positive 1/2 hour. Thanks McCain :hi:

[knowbody0]

3. the show left me with the impression

that Obama is weary like we are. That he carries with him our stories and it's a heavy load.

Ending with Obama live showed his steel spine and mesmerizing ability to inspire with hope.