BARACK WHO?

Posted at 7:34 p.m. ET

Do you remember Barack Obama?  You know, from last night?  B.S?  (That means, before Sarah.)  He's out there, and, as often happens, it's the British press that has the sharpest comments on him.  For example, there's Gerald Warner in London's Telegraph:

"This election has never been about me - it's about you!" Shucks, and there were we thinking maybe it was about the guy stepping out through the Pearl & Dean Corinthian gate to stand in front of a mock-up of the West Wing. But no, this multi-million-dollar razzmatazz is not about Barack Obama, it's about li'l ole Joe Public. Or so he will have persuaded that section of the American electorate that is in the market to buy the Brooklyn Bridge or watermelon mines in Argentina.

Wonderful.

Obama knew that he could not get away with just a rehash of his all too familiar Story, another dollop of sub-Kennedy rhetoric and an appeal to Democrat core prejudices last night. This time he had to go into policy specifics. By November 4 or earlier he may wish he had not. The specifics were actually strikingly non-specific, except for one thing: the mind-boggling expense of even the most minimalist construction that could be put upon the wish list he passed off as a programme.

In 10 minutes he spent $250bn. He plans to end US dependence on Middle East oil in 10 years. Sceptics will note that target is two years after the latest date at which he could constitutionally end his putative term of office. Over that same decade he will invest $150bn in "renewables" ("Y'all stock up on candles, now, Gran'ma"...), the modish, non-substitutes for effective energy with which we have already fiddled unproductively in this country. And he is into biofuels in a big way, which means more rumbling bellies in the Third World.

I detect that this man has doubts.  May they be shared by more than half the American electorate.

As always with Obama, the rhetoric was smoothly delivered. It will be surprising if the impressionist images on television do not give him a significant poll bounce.

Already happening.  We hope that the Palin selection will blunt Obama's rise.

Western pseudo-democracy is fuelled by politicians' speeches: the cynical manipulation of public emotion through the confection of ever more meaningless patterns of words. It is the few relatively factual passages that may now scupper Obama. But he will not mind because, as he said, this election is not about him.

The British writers get right to the point. 

And I like the point Gerald Warner got to.

August 29, 2008.