I’ll have more on Mark Warner’s speech in the near future. For now, I’ll note that there were large swaths of the speech that I liked. When a representative of the party of trial lawyers says, “After I graduated law school, it didn’t take long to realize America really wouldn’t miss me as a lawyer,” we can laugh twice – once at the joke, and once at the lawyers grinding their teeth at the suggestion that America has more than enough of them.
But periodically he offered some fluffy cotton balls of rhetoric that stood out for their emptiness.
“My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, the most important contest of our generation has begun. Not the campaign for the presidency, not the campaign for Congress, but the race for the future.”
Yes, but “the future” isn’t on the ballot. This is meaningless.
“This election isn’t about liberal vs. conservative. It’s not about left and right.” (Yes, it is.)
He asked “how many Americans thought their home would always be their safest investment?” Well, it gets less safe when you put no money down, and use an interest-only loan or an adjustable rate mortgage.
I’d like to know which “life-saving and life-changing cures” would be generated in six months if we “have an administration that actually believes in science.” What, does mentioning the words “intelligent design” cause cancer?
Warner suggests that the problem with schools is that they lack “an army of new teachers” and sufficient resources. He suggests that we need to “rebuild our alliances,” which is probably news to pro-American leaders like Sarkozy, Merkel, Berlusconi, Harper… I mean, I know Gordon Brown isn’t a huge fan of President Bush, but it’s not like he no longer sees his country as an ally of the United States.