I think [a 'government bailout' of newspapers—Ed. note: probably not an imminent threat!]is a terrible idea. What would happen is newspapers would then focus on this ultra-elite point-five-percent and create these papers that are just unreachable to a mass audience...I think for government to come in and force this intellectual thing would be terrible. It'd almost be like in 1950, with rock-n-roll coming, all the sudden the government comes in to support classical music.

Tribune is already taking steps to ensure that its papers don't appeal to the ultra-elites. [via Mixed Media]

Who's Matt Scully? Time explains:

A veteran of the early Bush White House, his specialty was crafting Bush's pro-life message in a way that would not offend soccer moms or mainstream Catholics who get nervous around some of the more extreme Evangelical rhetoric. A former protégé of the late pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, Scully has a history of finding rhetorical unity for voters on the right and in the center.

They also say Scully wrote the speech largely before Palin was selected. Which makes sense. But the parts that seemed tailored specifically to her? Who wrote those? Specifically, the line about small towns, and how they grow great people? That line, as was revealed this week, was written by a very bigoted columnist named Westbrook Pegler. That line seems like a landmine of unintentional readings: it was written by a racist, about a man who became president when the old man before him died. Not really a single good interpretation there, right?

Well either someone more wacky and right-wing than Scully got a hold of the speech before it was delivered (possible!), or Scully sabotaged her. Hear us out!

Scully left the Bush administration pissed off at his fellow speechwriter Mike Gerson and willing to settle scores in the pages of the liberal Atlantic. He wrote a book about animal rights and how he came to be a fairly militant vegetarian. The book is about how we humans have abused our God-granted "dominion" over the animals. He even opposes many hunting practices! Including, say, hunting wolves from fucking airplanes.

So. Michael Scully either put his party before his sense of morality and wrote a "red meat" speech for a wolf huntress, or someone else got in there and fixed it before Palin delivered it, or Scully bit his tongue and inserted a line by a long-dead far-right extremist that he found in an ancient Pat Buchanan book. Which, from the guy who crafted the "compassionate conservative" "different kind of Republican" message of Bush's 2000 campaign, seems an odd source to borrow from.

Also, when will anyone besides bloggers and Thomas Frank mention the Pegler quote or track down Scully for an interview?

Tonight, I think, was one of the best speeches he has ever given. It was a direct, personal and powerful endorsement of Obama. But much, much more than that: it was a statesman-like assessment of where this country is and how desperately it needs a real change toward reform and retrenchment at home and restoration of diplomacy, wisdom and prudence abroad.

Way to go Bill, for lowering the expectations so much (just the other day he was giving more terrible ill-advised quotes) that the sudden reappearance of President Clinton the Master Speaker was an amazing flashback. Remember when our President spoke like this? Christ.

Even Peggy Noonan—who's been hating Bill and Hillary for years!—was impressed:

This was Deft Political Pro Bill doing what no one had been able to do up to this point at the convention, and that is make the case for Barack Obama. He lambasted the foe, asserted Obama's growth on the trail, argued that he was the right man for the job and did that as a man who once held that job and is remembered, at least in terms of domestic policy and at least by half the country, as having done it pretty darn well. He gave his full imprimatur to a crowd that believes he has an imprimatur to give. As Clinton spoke a friend IM'd, "What is this, the Clinton convention?" The fact is, until both Clintons spoke, it was. Now oddly enough it isn't. Now eyes turn, and finally, to Obama. This was one of the great tee-ups.

And, you know, the speech was generous and good and amazingly well-delivered. But two nights of Clintons? It is the Clinton convention, bookmarked by the Obamas only on the first and last days. Which can go either way—if it makes audiences fondly remember the happy 1990s, when Democrats ran things fairly well and we all bought things from Pets.com while listening to that "Da da da" song in our VWs, than yes, brilliant work, Obama's a sure thing.

But if it just reminds people of the Clintons, with all their strengths and baggage, then that does absolutely nothing to help Obama get elected. Bill did good. Really good. And now it will be like three days until he says something insane and undermining about Obama again.

(Which is maybe another positive for Obama! Angry red-faced Bill just makes Barack Obama look fresh and good in comparison. Who knows, it's all just pissing in the winds of public opinion.)

Here's the speech!

"The best speech of her career," New York's Daily Intel says.

Great political speeches blow away petty questions about ambition (like “What does Hillary really want?”) by fusing the personal and the political, by making you believe in the speaker as the vessel of your hopes. On Tuesday night, even watching on TV, you could feel the familiar rhythms of Hillary amping up her supporters give way to the generosity (however rooted in self-interest) of her transferring their hopes to Obama.

Radar, suffering 18 million cracks in their cynicism ceiling due to Alex Balk's break from editing duties, also enjoyed it.

Slate's John Dickerson says Clinton's speech was mostly there, with the "were you in it just for me" line being the most important pivot point. But, you know, she never said anything about Obama, just that if the nation can't have Hillary it will have to settle for him. Because the alternative is scary!

The front page of the New York Post makes this astute point as well while also representing the Democratic Party with the cartoon jack-ass from Hee-Haw.

Tim Noah just weighs in with this, which seems apt. And, you know, our antipathy toward the Clintons and their army wavered last night as we enjoyed her speech, but in the cold light of mid-morning, we're not convinced anymore. It was just about her, her fantastic campaign, her great promise. But that guy in Iraq with adopted austic children who needs health care was not what her campaign was ever about. She ran a shitty, mismanaged campaign that went negative first and loudest, acted as if the nomination was her birthright, and represented dynastic politics that should make every student of American Democracy fucking sick. The "experience" she trumped was entirely imagined and exaggerated, she was wrong about the war and never adequately explained why, and, you know, she lost the primaries. Whatever. We don't hate her—she's smart as hell and capable and has actually been pretty gracious compared to her miserable husband—but no one owes her shit for coming in second in a fair fight.

Oh, and Josh Green just says it was boring. Which also seems apt.

The Post raves!

Sen. Ted Kennedy brought the Democratic faithful to cheers and tears last night as he emerged from a summer of treatment for brain cancer to vow that he'll be in Washington when a new president is sworn in.

And the Herald!

Bay State Sen. Edward M. Kennedy shook off the effects of cancer treatment and stood tall on the stage of the Democratic National Convention last night, declaring himself buoyed by a “new hope” for the nation and vowing to return to the Senate in January as thousands of delegates erupted in cheers and tears.

And most of the reviews were similarly ecstatic. It was an impressive performance. Kennedy seemed positively youthful, not like a man battling advanced brain cancer. And his speech was a welcome return to the stirring outward-looking rhetoric of yore, in an age in which most Democrats rely on personal tales of relatability and hardship ("I was born of a single mother and met an iron worker once" vs. "we're going to the fucking MOON"). Michelle was charming and capable, and she's smart as hell, but selling the rubes on the Democrats as the party of both the little guy and the party of grand ambition is more impressive than selling the people on the Obama Family as Just Like Us.

When it looked, for a time, that Ted Kennedy might be our next president, Kennedy family gadfly Gore Vidal said, "every country should have at least one King Farouk." And that was, basically, the official line on Teddy for most of his political career—the least of the Kennedy brothers. The dumb one. But somehow, after his undeserved ascent to his Senate seat, the Chappaquiddick tragedy, and his failure to win the presidency, he's become, against the odds, a respected statesman. That the right wing attempts so often to make him either a cartoonish villain or a dismissive fat joke might be a sign that he's actually a threat to their world-view, as an old-school '60s Senate liberal. We don't care for the family or the idolatry, but Ted's won our respect for actually building an impressive resume as a legislator and a deal-maker who wins victories for liberalism in the most undemocratic and depressing political institution of our United States.

"I’m happy to be in the midst of so many Asian babes," he said onstage, with his 20/20 colleague Juju Chang nearby. "In fact, I’m happy that the podium covers me from the waist down." He then noted that a speech should be "like a dress on a beautiful woman — long enough to cover the important parts and short enough to keep your interest — like my colleague Juju’s." ("See what I have to put up with?" she responded.)

Haha, that is a lot to put up with! Bashir and ABC later apologized profusely. The podium still has not forgiven him.

[Daily Intel]

[Full speech available here]

Obama should point out shocking facts like "We aren't always aware of our biases" (people love to be told that!) and "A conservative may end up the first woman president" (why would Obama say this??) and "Politics can make a difference for women" (can it get them a MAN? lol j/k).

Then he suggests that Obama use this speech on gender issues, the speech it would probably condescending for him to make, as it usually is when smart boys play "feminist," to save all the ladies and babies in Iraq and Africa, which, while a very noble and important cause, really has fuck-all to do with the gender issues that colored coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign and exposed deep reservoirs of sexism in the American body politic.

Then Kristof invites you to comment on this column on his Facebook page! You can be a Knight or a Vampire.

The Sex Speech [NYT]

To be sure, there are unnecessary cheap shots against the Clintons, she seizes on the color the suit Obama wore as representative of some larger point (it was gray do you see?), and she calls Obama "naïve" (is there a dumber storyline she could've picked for such a savvy sonuvabitch?), but there are no cutesy nicknames (besides one "Saint Obama"), no inept sarcasm, no armchair psychoanalyzing of any politicians, and very few of the tropes and tics that have made Ms. Dowd an irrelevant self-parody. She calls the speech "momentous and edifying" and seems impressed despite herself with the sophistication of the guy she's been calling "Obambi", because she couldn't think of an appropriate pop-cultural or pop-literary reference for him that wouldn't sound offensive.

This uncharacteristic reasonableness is spreading—the intolerable opinion page of the New York Sun today runs a column by linguist and Cosby-defending black curmudgeon John McWhorter that represents, if you'll forgive us for borrowing Jon Stewart's language, the very first example we've seen in the press of talking about the offensive sermons of Reverend Jeremiah Wright as though we were adults.

Some things, of course, never change, and the Wall Street Journal is quite upset that Barack Obama told the whole country that his white grandma is a racist.

Because no one wants to be seen as enough of a rube as to be impressed by fancy talk anymore, everyone needs to point out niggling flaws in the Great Race Talk.

John Dickerson (who liked it) says he mentioned Geraldine Ferraro too many times (we thought the mentions were diplomatic and smart) and that it wasn't fair to decry YouTube when YouTube made him have to deliver this awesome speech.

New Republic senior editor Michael Crowly says "Barack Obama gave a brilliant, inspiring, intellectually supple speech—but one that may have done little to solve his festering problem with working class white Americans."

Writing at WPNI's new black-oriented Root, political science professor Michael C. Dawson says a similar thing, but makes the point that Obama's deft comparison of black resentment to white working class resentment is a bit too kind to the racist attitudes that pervade the latter. Though of course he'd say that, he's black.

The "straight news" write-ups of the speech, if Times scribe Jeff Zeleny's piece is any indication, will focus largely on Obama's repudiation of Wright, which we read (and saw) as a mere intro to the points he was actually making. It was also the weakest part of the speech, especially when he reminded everyone that he loves Israel and hates the terrorists (but, as we said, that was an aside).

(Amazingly, professional asshole blogger Mickey Kaus, who just wanted Obama to throw the entire Black community to the curb, was basically dead-on in his prediction that Obama would toss the "anti-PC" crowd a bone in the beginning and then move on.)

Rich Lowry, writing in The Corner, has already declared it "The Throw Your Grandmother Under the Bus" speech, and we award him our first annual award for outstanding achievement in the field of purposefully and hilariously missing the point and trying to hurt America.

We saw the speech as an attempt to rebuild the way we talk about race as a nation, a way that is still fractured—one way for these mythical "whites at the dinner table", one way for blacks in churches, one way for academics and liberal arts students, and finally the depressing hand-wringing OJ trial way it's "discussed" in the media. The pundit reactions all seem to acknowledge the necessity of that discourse-altering goal, but none of the reactors have Obama's rhetorical tools, so we're just stuck back in the feedback loop.

Obama totally defused the "pastor" thing as a press issue, but no one who doesn't read the damn speech for themselves will have any idea of what he was actually saying.

It wasn't a rousing affair—it was a largely low-key and intellectual and kinda literary exploration of the entire race situation in America, with only one heart-warming story, at the end, but the most impressive thing about it is that it has briefly allowed the carnival barkers on TV to talk about race in a vaguely reasonable way (except for Pat Buchanan). Some of these people are actually intelligent, so it's nice that Obama gave them permission to briefly stop bullshitting.

The thesis of the speech: many black people are resentful of America, with good fucking reason. Lots of white people are also resentful of America, also with very good reason. And sometimes they blame the wrong people for what's wrong! These shockingly obvious ideas are generally left unspoken on the TV, so it's nice to have them clearly explicated and taken seriously. Now we get to wait and see how the pundits will twist a thoughtful and lengthy speech into a couple platitudes.

(Wolf Blitzer has already found a GOTCHA moment, because Barack Obama CONDEMNED Reverend Wright's controversial remarks but then said he didn't condemn Reverend Wright himself, or something. Jesus.)

[Via Politico]