You know… he’s a lot like his dad… happy to sit in a beach chair all day long.

My father is furious with this convention. He accepts, grudgingly, that this might be the convention that Kerry needs… an appeal to that 10% of "swing voters" who supposedly haven’t made up their minds yet, but this doesn’t make him happy. "If this is the future of conventions, they should stop having them." Because he feels, as a good liberal, that there is nothing for him and nothing that is news. And worse, nothing that is being said that anyone actually believes. I tried to use Al Sharpton’s speech today as a counter-example, and he replied, "Do you really think that that was as harsh as Sharpton wanted to be on Bush?"

It was a good point. And it’s a frustrating one. And I started thinking about the past four years… and my father’s comments… and the hints off anger from the various speakers.

We’re in a war that falsely invoked the names of 3,000 dead Americans that has caused the death of nearly 1,000 more Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis… as our President lied to his citizenry and the world… and the biggest beneificiaries are the friends of the administration who are making millions on war profiteering.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

Four years ago, thousands of African-American voters were denied their right to vote because some list in Florida said they were felons… and last week, we saw evidence that it could happen again. And this is only thirty-nine years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

We have passed legislation that has seriously curtailed the civil rights of Americans while pursuing policies that have not made us any safer from terrorism.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

We have gone from the largest surplus in history to the largest deficit in history while spending over 200 billion dollars in a war started on false pretenses.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

We have seen even the most basic Freedom of Information Act requests turned down by a government that rules by secrecy and deceit — undermining the most basic premises of our democratic society.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

We have cut benefits to our veterans, passed draconian education policy and then made it an unfunded mandate.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

We have passed the single largest tax cut to the richest Americans in our history, creating a situation where our income tax system now is perilously close to a regressive system, asking the most from those who can afford it least.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

We have seen corporate influence grow stronger and more brazen as the voices on our airwaves get shriller, and from a narrower and narrower slice of the political spectrum.

Shouldn’t we be angry?

So while I applaud the Kerry / Edwards campaign for wanting to run a positive campaign, and I am impressed that so many of the Democrats have, for the sake of party unity and a willingness to follow the game plan, given speeches that have been mostly oblique in their critique and upbeat in their message, I do wonder… are we giving the most corrupt and anti-democratic administration in history a pass by doing so?

Do we owe it to the true vision and values of this country to call these people what they are — theives and liars who have hijacked the democratic process in this country for their own agenda and power?

Shouldn’t we be angry?

Barack Obama gave a brilliant speech tonight. I encourage everyone to go watch it on RealPlayer and/or go read the speech.
He spoke to the traditional values of the Democratic Party — opportunity, equality, justice, education — and his personal story shows why those values are so important. Then he also spoke to our need to see ourselves as one America:

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

He’s right, of course, and his lens on the dangers of segmenting our nation was wonderful.

He also reminded me of a speech that I don’t remember seeing, but I certainly remember reading. Twenty-eight years ago, the first black keynote speaker at a Democratic Convention was Barbara Jordan, and she gave a speech that is as powerful today as it was then.