The pundits are singing Bill Clinton's praises today. The San Francisco Chronicle called it "Bill Clinton's populist tour de force." HuffPost headlines "Bill Kills", "Bubba brings the house down." CNN: "Clinton hit all the marks." Characteristically, the LA Times took the celebrity angle: "Clinton shows he's still a star."
Watching Bill Clinton speak last night, I thought of Glenn Gould playing Bach. Gould, like Clinton, was a true master and artist at his craft. He also had that ability to let the listener hear new things even in Bach. Who knew the Goldberg Variations were actually interesting?
Most speakers couldn't get away with a speech heavily devoted to policy, yet Clinton did, and regularly does. He slices and dices the issues in such a way that people can get his point and enjoy doing it.
That business about the administration stealing $716 billion from Medicare was a lie from the start, and, in this case, even after Clinton explained it, you still didn't quite get it, but one thing you did get is that Paul Ryan was just making things up. Ed Kilgore summarizes well:
He covered, mostly brilliantly, the economy, the debt, health care reform, Medicare, Medicaid (including its importance to seniors, which everyone keeps forgetting), taxes, and Obama’s character.
...the speech was sort of a Bill’s Greatest Hits rolled into one text, combining humor, policy chops, eloquence, colloquial skill and passion.
One of the reasons Clinton's speech lit up the lights is because he said out loud what many have known all along: Ryan/Romney's numbers don't add up. Clinton's remarks seemed fresh and new because the national media narrative has never gone there. Clinton did what the media should have done long ago.
His speech was on a teleprompter, but you couldn't really tell it. He played that teleprompter like a saxophone, riffing here and there, and, in so doing, popping off some of his best lines. His ad-lib on Paul Ryan was choice: "It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did."
The prepared text, which Clinton was editing up until he gave it, was 3000 words. The delivered text was just short of 6000. It went on some, but a good deal of those 3000 added words, were words designed to include the listener. “Now you’re having a good time but this is getting serious and I want you to listen.” He was in the rare position of trying to tamp down his own applause so he could get more words in, and the crowd was glad he did.
He repeated the words "shared prosperity" and "shared responsibility" many times, accentuating the fundamental difference between two points of view. One view is social darwinist, i.e. that to the strongest go the spoils--and the other is communitarian, i.e. we all sink or swim together. As he put it: “We believe that ‘we’re all in this together’ is a far better philosophy than ‘you’re on your own.’”
My convention history goes back a ways, and I remember some great speeches--Mario Cuomo in 1984, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Clinton's earlier speeches, Hillary in 2008, Julian Castro and Deval Patrick this year--but President Bill Clinton's speech last night was the best of them all. He hit every major issue, and hit a home run on every one.
A virtuoso display. He's the very best. 'Nuff said.
Posted by: Hypatia | September 06, 2012 at 01:09 PM
As a former New Yorker, I have a soft spot for "The Gov," but I agree that Clinton's was fantastic. It is nice when a politician reaches the stage in his career when he doesn't have to pull punches anymore.
Posted by: lillianjane | September 06, 2012 at 01:14 PM
Are you thinking of Mario or Andrew?
Posted by: John Petty | September 10, 2012 at 12:25 PM
Mario!
I suppose Andrew is fine too but I haven't actually heard him.
Posted by: lillianjane | September 10, 2012 at 03:17 PM