Pining for the Pre-Depression Days of Al Smith and Herbert Hoover

One of the great traditions in American politics, at least during the more normal presidential election years, is the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation’s dinner in New York City. Named for the four-time New York governor who became the first Catholic presidential nominee as the Democratic standard-bearer in the ’28 race, the foundation raises money for Catholic charities and hosts an annual swanky big-bucks white-tie affair that always attracts the cream of New York’s political and business and media and social elites, and every leap year’s dinner features both presidential contenders taking a night off from the campaign’s acrimony to make self-deprecating jokes about themselves and lighthearted joshes about the opponent.

In this crazy election year, of course, it didn’t work out that way.

This year the dinner was inconveniently scheduled the day after what turned out to be an especially acrimonious debate between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump, and both candidates were facing a tough crowd. Some hacked computers files made public by Wikileaks have recently revealed some of Clinton’s staffers making anti-Catholic remarks, and the New York press has recently quoted some high-ranking church official’s taking exception to Clinton’s maximalist positions on abortion. Trump’s unpopularity with New York’s political and business and media and social elites is more longstanding, and his recent rhetoric about how they’re all part of a system rigged against him hasn’t helped. Throw in that Trump doesn’t do self-deprecation or light-hearted joshing, and Clinton has no apparent sense of humor of any sort, and the affair was off to a bad start before the first glass of wine was served.

Trump was given the first opportunity to prove how very charming and witty and likable he was, but for some reason chose not to even try. Coming on to polite applause, Trump got a laugh by pointing out a couple of pols and talking about they used to love him back when he was a Democrat, got another laugh by noting how many people in the room have known and loved for so many years, bragged how they use to seek his donations, then groused that they all hate him now that he’s a Republican. Noting the tradition of making self-deprecating jokes, Trump got a few laughs about how uncharacteristic that would be, did some joshing with the Cardinal seated nearby how they both have fancy buildings on Fifth Avenue, and humbly conceded that “nobody can compete with God, is that right? No contest.” He then launched into Clinton with a joke about her bumping into him and saying “pardon me,” and how he had offered him an ambassadorship to Iraq or Afghanistan, and noting that she usually charged more for speeches to rich people, all of which was in the spirit of the event and got a few polite chuckles. Then he compared Clinton unfavorably to his long-time tabloid nemesis Rosie O’Donnell, which clearly made the crowd uncomfortable, and made a joke about how the assembled media were working on Clinton’s behalf, which came off rather bitter.

He shifted back to self-deprecating mode with a joke about how the media will praise Michelle Obama for making a great speech but criticize his wife for making the exact same speech, which got a good laugh, but it was mostly deprecating his wife, and isn’t likely to help his gender gap in the polls. From that point on the joshing was noticeably less light-hearted, as Trump started snarling jokes about Clinton telling her father confessor at the Federal Bureau of Investigation “she couldn’t remember 39 times,” and such gems as “Hillary is so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate commission. How corrupt do you have to be? Pretty corrupt.” There was some further criticism of her corruption that didn’t seem a joke at all, then a line about how she was invited by e-mail but didn’t learn until Wikileaks revealed, then another non-joke about Clinton taking public and private positions, which set up what he seemed to think was a joke about Clinton “pretending not to hate Catholics.”

The material probably would have killed at one of Trump’s rallies, where the crowds are adorned in “Make America Great Again” ball caps and “Trump That Bitch” t-shirts, but the white-tied and elegantly gowned crowd of New York’s elites were loudly booing him by that point, which kind of deflated a closing joke about “Hillary Clinton’s isn’t laughing as much as the rest of us.” He made a slight recovery with some kind words about the good works done by Catholic charities, and left to some straining-to-be-polite applause, but the press was already rushing to print negative reviews about Trump’s “screed.”

Few politicians in American history have ever had greater need to come across as witty and charming and likable than Clinton, and we’ll have to concede she was savvy enough to take full advantage of the opportunity. She started by noting that Al Smith’s running mate was from Arkansas and a boyhood hero of her husband, which seemed to endear her to the Catholics in the crowd, then launched into the old self-deprecating shtick with a joke about she’s taken time off her “rigorous nap schedule” to be there and provided her own joke about she usually charges big bucks for a speech to rich people. She got a few laughs with a subtle joke about being up against a stained-glass ceiling, bigger laughs an inside-New York joke about the mayor and the governor’s rivalry, polite twitters with a josh about formal pantsuits, flattered the crowd that they were a “basket of adorables,” and then launched into Trump. She invited him to stand up and shout “wrong” while she was talking and had something about him letting her take the stage in “a peaceful transition of power,” which got a few laughs, and remarked that after hearing Trump’s speech she was “looking forward to hearing Mike Pence deny that he ever gave it,” which even we thought pretty clever. The jokes got more barbed at that point, suggesting that Trump would think the dinner had been rigged, and how he looked at the Statue of Liberty “and saw a 4, maybe a 5 if she dropped the torch and tablet and changed her hair.”

The crowd was a little nervous at that point, even though they cheered her line about how “a good number for a woman would be 45,” as in the 45th president, but Clinton shrewdly shifted back to self-deprecation, joking about how it took a village to right her jokes and how she’s been the life of every party she’s ever attended, “and I’ve been to three.” Veering back to attack mode, she spoke of how difficult it is for Trump to read from a teleprompter when he has to translate from the original Russian, and how sensible mainstream Republicans are now known as “Hillary supporters,” then offered a bipartisan jape about how at least the election will be over. She tossed a few friendly jabs at the assembled Democratic grandees, a less friendly jab at former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani, and responded to Trump’s recent allegations that she’s using performance enhancing drugs with a joke about he hadn’t prepared, another joke about Trump’s reputation for stiffing his contractors, another joke about Pence, a line about shortening the election season that got applause even from Trump, another sharp jab about Trump’s feud with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. Much of it pushed up against the event’s collegial traditions enough to render the laughter slightly nervous, and the quality of jokes varied wildly, but the delivery was low-key and amiable enough that even the pro-Trump outskirts of the press will have a hard time calling it a “screed.”

Clinton ended with a more serious few moments about the anti-Catholic prejudice that Al Smith faced during that long-ago presidential race, threw in some lines about Pope Francis’ recent remarks about “building bridges instead of walls,” and seemed to assure the assembled Bishops and Archbishops and Cardinals that whatever their disagreements regarding abortion she didn’t hate Catholics. Off course the political and business and media and social elites were already assured she didn’t hate them, so she walked off to a much bigger hand than Trump received, at which we point we were composing our own joke about which candidate had the bigger hands. All in all we’d say she came off  somewhat more witty and charming and likable than Trump, which is not saying much, and at this point in this crazy election we’d say that’s pretty darned bad news for Trump. America deserves better than these two jokers, and so does the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation’s fancy-schmantzy dinners.

— Bud Norman

When It’s All So Awful It All Cancels Out

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee delivered an address on Wednesday about why the presumptive Democratic presidential is obviously unfit for the presidency, and we can’t see how any fair-minded individual might disagree he he made a very persuasive case. We’ve been earnestly pleasing the very same case since way back when the presumptive Republican nominee was saying the the presumptive Democratic nominee would make a great Secretary of State and was contributing to her phony-baloney family foundation and inviting her to his third wedding, and although we’d like to think we did so with more thoroughness and a more Swift-ian wit and less hypocrisy we concede he did a pretty good job of explaining why that awful woman should never be allowed to become president.

With characteristic bluntness he called her a “world-class liar” and the “most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency,” and convincingly backed up the slurs with a familiar and well-established litany about the past decades of lies and corruption and other assorted scandals that have dogged her for her song long they’re now dismissed as “old news.” The speech would have had to have gone on as long as a Phillip Glass opera to include all the lies and corruption that we’ve dutifully passed along about the presumptive Democratic nominee over the years, so we can’t fault the presumptive Republican nominee for his lack of thoroughness, and we freely acknowledge that his rhetorical bluntness has proved far more effective than our Swift-ian wit, but we do worry that the blatant hypocrisy somehow blunted the message.

The presumptive Republican nominee’s speeches quite rightly denounced the presumptive Democratic nominee’s phony-balony family foundation as an influence-peddling scheme, but his fans will have to console themselves that his own six-figure contribution to that scam and his past boasts of buying political influence elsewhere just goes to show what a shrewd businessman he is. The presumptive Republican nominee quite rightly criticizes the presumptive Democratic nominee’s decision as Secretary of State to overthrow the odious-but-largely-defanged dictatorship of Libya’s dictatorial regime and boasts that he was more prescient about the matter, even though you can still watch the YouTube video of the presumptive Republican nominee urging the same disastrous policy as the presumptive Democratic nominee, and he’s running against her vote for the second Iraq War, falsely claiming that he was against it all along and now staking out the disproved andleft-of-the-presumptive-Democratic-nominee claim that “Bush lied, people died.” The presumptive Republican nominee’s otherwise convincing critiques of his erttwhile friend and new-found enemy’s “re-set” policy with Russia are undermined by how his own staff’s friendly business relationship with the nasty dictatorship there, and his unsettling “bromance” with that country’s dictator, and given how much the average voter pays attention to this stuff in these post-Cold War days we’d call it a draw. Although we pay far more attention to these matters than average voters, our experience of the average voter suggests we’d also have to call it a draw.

A few days ago the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was giving her own big speech about how the presumptive Republican nominee was a world-class liar and a thoroughly corrupt person, and except for the utter hypocrisy of such a world-class liar and thoroughly corrupt person complaining about him we didn’t find anything that fair-minded person wouldn’t agree with. Which is we find ourselves in these hot and sultry summer pre-convention days, and we can only hope for cooler temperatures come fall.

–Bud Norman

Three Speeches Worth Reading

The United Nations has been celebrating its 70th year of existence with a week-long marathon of orations by world leaders. Most of it has been as pointless as the United Nations itself, but three of the speeches merit some consideration.

The first was by President of the United States Barack Obama, and it’s a remarkably mushy piece of work. He starts with the obligatory genuflections to the UN’s high ideals, segues into some blather about how “five years after the global economy collapsed, and thanks to coordinated efforts by the countries here today, jobs are being created, global financial systems have stabilized and people are once again being lifted out of poverty,” and he somehow keeps a straight face throughout. The rest is mostly a similarly silly defense of his foreign policy.

He boasts that “Together we’ve also worked to end a decade of war,” by which he means his unilateral retreat of all American troops from Iraq. That another war has since started up as a result of that decision, which is now the main topic of conversation at the UN and elsewhere, goes unmentioned until later. He also boasts that we will soon have affected a unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan, “having its mission of dismantling the core of al-Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11,” and he sounded quite confident that will work out just as well. There are further boasts of “transferring detainees to other countries and trying terrorists in courts of law while working diligently to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay,” and he still kept that straight face while asserting that “As a result of this work and cooperation with allies and partners, the world is more stable than it was five years ago.” He humbly acknowledges that there’s still an awful lot of terrorism going on, and that core of al-Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11 “does pose threats to governments and diplomats, businesses and civilians all across the globe,” but with all the progress he’s made in releasing captured terrorists he doesn’t seem very concerned.

Eventually Obama does get around to that war that’s presently going on in Syria and Iraq and other jurisdictions of the Middle East, complete with beheadings and crucifixions and chemical weapons attacks and Russian anti-aircraft equipment that seems an odd thing to have against a terrorist army lacking an air force, and is now causing an invasion of Europe by hundreds of thousands potentially millions “refugees” from even the jurisdictions that aren’t under fire, and he’s willing to concede that “The international community recognized the stakes early on, but our response has not matched the scale of the challenge.” His dismissal of the beheading and crucifying Islamic State as a “jayvee team” of terrorism and his past praise of the Syrian dictator as a “reformer” presumably occurred before that early on date when international community recognized the stakes.

We also note he’s still insisting that “the situation spiraled into civil war” as “many retreated to their sectarian identities” of “Alawites and Sunni, Christian and Kurd,” as if each of those groups shared the same blame. Such moral equivalency is perhaps required at a United Nations assembly, at least if you’re a properly educated liberal such as Obama, but the world is full of more practical people who will recognize that it’s nonsense. The Christians of Syria and Iraq and the rest of the Middle East have mainly concerned themselves for civilizational survival for the past 1,300 years or so, with few resources to make trouble even if they were inclined to do so, and the reasonable-by-Middle-Eastern-standards Kurds have been in pretty much the same situation. Neither group has received any useful military benefits from either Obama or that international coalition he keeps talking about, and apparently they can’t even count on any rhetorical support.

There was some sterner talk, as well. Obama insisted on an international ban on the use of chemical weapons in the multi-sided war, and actually boasted that “When I stated my willingness to to order a limited strike against the Assad regime in response to the brazen use of chemical weapons, I did not do so lightly.” Neither did he ever act on it, of course, but he seems proud to note that the UN’s Security Council never passed a resolution about it. Without that credible threat of military force an international ban on chemical weapons will likely be as useful as that “No Gun Zone” sign posted on the campus of the latest mass murder, but Obama is pleased to say that “However, as I’ve discussed with President Putin for over a year, most recently in St. Petersburg, my preference has always been for a diplomatic resolution to this issue.” He seemed to sincerely believe that Putin has helped to rid his Syrian allies of their chemical weapons arsenal, and that both parties can be fully trusted.

There was further stern talk about the use of “all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests in the region,” and ensuring the free flow of oil from the region, and dismantling terror groups, and then he launched into that awful deal with the Iranians that seems to allow them to cheat their way to a nuclear bomb while a $150 billion check for more support of terrorism and “death to America” rallies. This included the moral equivalence between Iran’s hostage-taking, terrorism, war-mongering, threats of genocide against the Israelis, brutal suppression of its own people, and the fact that “Iranians have long complained of a U.S. history of interference in their affairs and of America’s role in overthrowing the Iranian government during the Cold War.” That America’s role in overthrowing an domestically unpopular Iranian government that was almost as brutal as as that unfortunate country’s current one has long been overstated is of no matter, of course, so long as Obama looks better than his country.

The speech was delivered with that grandiloquently upturned chin and in that famously stentorian Obama baritone, and thus sounded a lot better than it looks on paper, so it got the usual rave reviews in the American media. How it played with the international audience, which has gotten harder to please over the past five years, is less clear. The applause wasn’t nearly so rapturous as in the past, and we suspect they mostly heard the part about Obama’s preference for a diplomatic resolution and his admissions of America’s past sins and how the Christians and Kurds are as guilty as the rest.

Worse yet, the speech was shortly followed by a far more believably stern oration by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama’s supposed partner in shutting down the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program also opened with the obligatory genuflections to the UN, but in his case he was proud to say it all started at the Yalta Conference where his Soviet predecessors steamrolled the haplessly idealistic Roosevelt administration into ceding eastern Europe to communist rule and establishing the Security Council so that Russia could veto anything that might promote liberty and democracy. He generously acknowledged that the other Security Council members didn’t always agree with Russia, but he didn’t offer any apologies. Instead he launched into a history lesson, saying “We all know that after the Cold War, a single center of domination emerged in the world,” and explaining that “those who found themselves at the top of that pyramid were tempted to think that if we are so strong and exceptional then we know better than anyone what to do and why at all should we reckon with the UN, which instead of automatically authorizing and legitimizing necessary actions often creates obstacles or, in other words, ‘stands in the way.'”

So far the speech seems written to defy any possible rebuttal by Obama, who might very well have written the speech himself. Putin goes on to say that America’s actions as the lone superpower are entirely responsible for the 1,300-year-old Islamist jihads that have been heating up at least since the Algerian revolution in ’50s, and that also sounds a lot like any of Obama’s stump speeches since at least the ’08 election. The Russian president goes on to say that Russia is therefore obliged to come to the world’s rescue by crushing the Islamist State and protecting the Assad regime and enhancing the power of its Iranian patron and bringing the former American protector of Iraq under its influence, much as Mother Russia once single-handedly saved the world from Naziism, and so we should all be grateful the Russian-Iranian-Syrian axis that is imposing its will on the Middle East. We’re hard-pressed to think how Obama might refute that, but we’re confident he would prefer it involve a diplomatic resolution.

Obama did talk about how Russia’s aggressions in the Middle East as well as Ukraine and other sections of its former Soviet empire have resulted in financial problems, defections, and some international opprobrium, but Putin doesn’t seem to care much about any of that. If he’s been dealt as a weak hand as Obama insists at least he’s been playing it better than Obama’s flush of bleeding hearts, and although it might not work at the end of that long arc of history that Obama likes to say is always bending toward justice he’s likely to reap the benefits until then, and nothing in Putin’s speech left any doubt that he intended to continues his policies with or without the benefit of a diplomatic solution.

The speech probably played well in the Russian press, which is almost as dutiful to its president as its American counterparts, and it certainly made an impression on its intended international audience. Although the applause was perfunctory, the audience could not doubt that Putin meant every word of it.

Nor could anyone doubt a singe word of an even sterner speech by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The former special forces fighter didn’t bother with the obligatory genuflections to the UN’s high ideals, and instead noted the many times that the organization was “obsessively hostile towards Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East.” After punctuating this with a long, silent stare at the body’s worst anti-Semites, Netanyahu then launched into a blistering denunciation of the west’s capitulatory deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons saying, “This deal doesn’t make peace more likely. By fueling Iran’s aggressions with billions of dollars in sanctions relief, it makes war more likely.” He pointed out that since the framework of the deal was agreed upon Iran has sent more fighters to Syria to supports its regime, shipped tons of weapons and ammunition to Houthi rebels in Yemen, threatened the government of Jordan, increased its efforts on behalf of Hamas and Hezbollah in its terror wars against Israel and Lebanon, continued its chants of “Death to America,” and reiterated its desire to annihilate Israel. There’s no refuting any of this, and moral equivalences with Israel and its erstwhile allies in the west are hard to make, so we expect that both Obama and Putin were glad they didn’t have to follow this speech.

Rather than making apologies for his country, Netanyahu vowed to defend it. He vowed that Israel will continue to defend itself against any attacks from Syria, and to prevent the flow of arms through Syria to Hezbollah, and to do whatever is required to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Although he was not specific about that third promise, it was strongly implied that whatever is required might be required soon. The language was blunt, and poetic only when Netanyahu spoke of the challenges the Jewish people have faced before and are ready to face to again, but at no point did it leave room for doubt.

Even the most eloquent speeches, no matter how grandiloquently upturned the chin or stentorian the baritone delivery, are only useful to the extent that speaker means it. We have no doubt that Putin and Netanyahu mean what they say, so all that talk about the UN’s high ideals and the hope of a diplomatic resolution is quite unconvincing.

— Bud Norman

A Conventional Convention

Four years ago or so the Democrats’ national convention was the hot show on television, and Barack Obama was so ubiquitous that we sought refuge from his constant presence by sneaking to a certain small tavern we have been known to frequent. Even there we found no escape, however, as a rather belligerent regular not only insisted that the bar’s fuzzy old television be tuned to the nominee’s acceptance speech but that everyone cease their conversations and listen with proper reverence.

We did not oblige him, of course, and continued to exercise our God-given right to talk baseball with one of the more apolitical patrons, but at full volume the great orator’s oration proved unavoidable. No lines from the speech come to mind, although there was probably something in there about hope and change and the failed policies of George W. Bush, but we well remember the alarming degree of excitement that the event seemed to generate. It was a big football stadium filled to capacity with screaming fans, with great columns looming on a stage created by Madonna’s own set designer, thousands of those kitschy Shepard Fairey “Hope” posters with Obama’s beatific face looking sagely upward to a bright shiny waving in the stands, and millions of people around the country chanting the candidate’s name in unison. It was quite a sight, and most unsettling.

Four years now seems a long time ago. We once again sought refuge from the big acceptance speech, this time at a slightly swanker establishment that serves a good chicken-fried steak, but this time all three of the fancy-schmantzy flat screen high-definition televisions were tuned to sports and absolutely no one in the place raised an objection. The convention seems a less popular show this time around, with the overnight ratings from Wednesday showing that the most popular broadcast of Bill Clinton’s much-hyped speech was routed by the National Football League’s season opener and tied with something called “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” which The Hollywood Reporter describes as a “zeitgeisting reality show.” Obama’s speech was indoors on a rather plain stage, too, the big football stadium show having been cancelled because of either a slight chance of rain or fear that they wouldn’t be able to fill enough seats for convincing show of support.

What we perused of the speech made no mention of hope or change, although there were several oblique references to the failed policies of George W. Bush, and none of it seemed particularly memorable. There were reports on the radio that the speech would include a major announcement regarding entitlement reform, but except for the part where he claimed the president claimed that Obamacare was going to lower medical costs and thus save Medicare and Medicaid from impending extinction we couldn’t find anything of the sort. None of those Shepard Fairey “Hope” posters were on display, perhaps because the artist is currently facing jail time for illegally covering up evidence that it was all a fraud. The crowd of die-hard fans in the convention hall went predictably wild, as did many of the television and radio commentators, but the chants of the candidate’s name seemed fainter.

Perhaps we perceive a relative lack of enthusiasm for Obama because we live in Kansas, where he wasn’t very popular even back during the Obama-mania days of ’08, but we often run into what’s left of the left around here and they seem unusually eager to talk about baseball. When the conversation does get around to politics, as it always will with these people, they’re invariably more excited to discuss Mitt Romney’s tax returns, personal banking practices, or secret plan to enslave women and black people than they are to enthuse about their own candidate.

The ratings were down for the Republican convention, too, and we must concede that the Republicans of our acquaintances are more prone to talk about Obama’s failings than Romney’s alternatives, but this general disdain for politics is further evidence that hope and change and all that jazz are no longer the “zeitgeisting” reality show that they once were. Throughout most of their convention the Democrats seemed most energized when comparing their opponents to Nazis or describing the nightmare dystopia those evil Republicans are diabolically plotting, and we expect to hear a lot more of it between and November.

The only consolation is knowing that it should be more easily avoided.

— Bud Norman

An Unconvenional Convention

There’s no definitive word yet on how many Americans were paying any attention to this week’s Republican National Convention, but to whatever extent people were watching the GOP probably helped itself with the proceedings.

Those Americans who have already made up their minds that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are evil incarnate simply won’t be convinced otherwise, but anyone still willing take an objective look at the candidate likely came away with a favorable impression. Several strong speeches by a diverse group of impressive speakers made a compelling case against the current administration, offered a reasonable argument for the opposition’s credentials and policies, got in a few good lines, and unless you’ve got one of those secret decoder rings that allows you to discern the nefarious racist intent of such terms as “Chicago” and “golf” they did so without resorting to ad hominen attacks or uncivil rhetoric.

The speeches by Romney and Ryan were especially good. Ryan’s address was a masterpiece, full of the cold, hard facts that had previously made him famous and the hot passion and soft friendliness that have emerged since his selection as the vice-presidential candidate. In addition to cataloguing the various failures of the Obama administration, outlining a free-market alternative, and issuing a stern and believable warning that “We don’t have much time,” the speech also shrewdly acknowledged the appealing squareness of Mitt Romney and demonstrated an appealing personality. There was also a nice line about the young people staring up at the fading Obama posters in the parental basements that a bad economy has forced them to live in, and the image has played so well that the Republicans are already building an advertising campaign around it.

The only objection to Ryan’s speech was that it was so very strong it threatened to overshadow the top of ticket’s acceptance speech, but Romney followed it with a very strong oration of his own. Critics are quibbling that the speech was short on specifics, but there’s no point to specificity about plans that are going to be run through too many committees and compromises to emerge in anything like their original form. What’s needed, rather, is a statement of the underlying principles and political and economic philosophies that will apply throughout the legislative process, and Romney made it clear that he will tack a far more capitalistic and libertarian course than the present administration.

More importantly, as far as winning over those persuadable voters who might have tuned it, Romney came off as a nice guy. The mere absence of horns and a pitchfork did much to rebut the Democrats’ caricature of him, but he also managed the difficult feat of making a strong case for himself without seeming egotistical. There were no Greek columns or talk of turning back the tides, and the contrast to his opposition was striking.

The contrast to the hateful response of various media commentators, political activists, and Democratic politicians was also stark. That response also suggests that the Republicans did pretty well, and it will be interesting to see if the Democrats can keep their temper through their convention.

— Bud Norman

About Those Speeches

The art of political oratory has become so degraded in America that Barack Obama was able to pass himself off as a silver-tongued speaker just four years ago, but we still enjoy hearing what passes for speechifying these days. What we heard on the radio Tuesday from the Republican National Convention was mostly pretty good, at least by contemporary standards, and likely to compare well with next week’s efforts by the Democrats.

We missed most of the address by Mia Love, the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, candidate for congress, and a rising star of the conservative movement, but saw that her address won plaudits from the right-wing commentators and by all accounts “electrified” the crowd. The portion we did hear was indeed rousing, stressing the traditional Republican values of self-reliance and personal responsibility with a convincingly personal touch, and we expect we’ll be hearing more from her in the comings months. Those watching the convention on MSNBC apparently missed all of the speech, as the left-wing network simply cut away from all of the black and Latino speakers lest their audience be confused about why a crowd full of racists were cheering so loudly for a black woman such as Love.

Former Pennsylvania senator and failed presidential contender Rick Santorum also spoke, and while he probably managed to get his many supporters enthused about the Romney candidacy we don’t expect the speech had much appeal beyond his fans. The speech was a strange extended metaphor about hands, starting with the gnarled but strong hands of his coal-mining father and running through the various sorts of hands he shook while campaigning, and although it had some kind words for traditional Judeo-Christian values it was light on the hellfire-and-brimstone stuff that scared the children and the secular reporters during the campaign.

Even the ABC reporters who kept interrupting the speakers on the radio were hard-pressed to find much fault with a rousing speech by the nominee’s wife, Ann Romney, who gave an endearingly personal account of her husband’s career. The main chore facing the Romney campaign, which has been besieged by the most extravagant sort of negative advertising, seems to be convincing the public that he’s not a top-hatted villain who ties damsels to railroad tracks for cackling laughs, and the speech was probably effective at countering that cartoonish image. By hearing it on the radio we missed out on the full effect of her classy good looks, but even so we found it very compelling and just the sort of thing that should have particular appeal to the kind of women who are susceptible to the Democrats’ most outrageous slanders.

Keynote speaker Chris Christie gave a good speech, but that was disappointing because we’d been expecting a great one. The famously burly governor of New Jersey has some heretical views typical of his region, especially on gun rights and radical Islamist jurists, but on the crucial issue of fiscal sanity he’s been heroic, and he’s achieved great things in a stubbornly liberal state by stating the cold, hard facts of life with his legendary bluntness, so it seemed certain that he’d lay it on with extra gusto in a prime time spot. Alas, although he talked about being blunt he failed to do so, and left us wanting more.

Perhaps we’ll get it when Romney and running mate Paul Ryan make their acceptance speeches. Both will probably attempt to be at their most likeable, but they’re genuinely likeable guys if you don’t happen to hate successful people, so the effort shouldn’t prevent them from laying out the difficult truths that Christie spoke of. We don’t anticipate anything along the lines of Patrick Henry’s “The War Inevitable” or Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, but it should be pretty good.

— Bud Norman