The Infomercial

Eve Fairbanks, writing at The New Republic, offers a sharp take on Obama's 30-minute wonder:

Look, the performance was scripted, so I won't extrapolate too broadly on Obama's actual character from it, but the person he presented himself as tonight was a listener, a gatherer of stories, a reporter, somebody who's interested in the pure, gritty texture of his interlocutors' lives, and not merely in the way their lives happen to illustrate his abstract positions.

At one juncture, he gave a shout-out to a woman he'd met in Iowa whose son had recently deployed*. The reminiscence didn't even entirely have a point. Its goal was to telegraph that he was listening, even to the random people on the trail who -- unlike, say, Joe the Plumber -- were never destined to become symbols. [snip]

Delivered over a montage of black and white photos that subtly recalled the imagery of the civil rights era, this part just killed. "I will listen to you when we disagree": Who, after the last eight years, doesn't pine for some of that?

It was the best thirty minutes of the campaign - half an hour without a single instance of character assassination, race-baiting, or lies about the opposition. Refreshing to say the least. I am so ready to vote.

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