Barack Obama called out John McCain in his speech tonight. Obama gave a Michael-Douglas-type of invitation to John McCain. In “The American President”, Douglass’ character (President Andrew Shepherd) spent most of the movie getting beat up by his Republican challenger Senator Bob Rumson, played brillantly by Richard Dreyfuss. Towards the end of the the film, Shepherd calls out Rumson by saying “If you want to talk about character and American values, fine, just tell me where and when and I’ll show up.”
The most amazing aspect of this speech was that it was bold and yet humble. Obama deftly handled the national defense issue in a way that was pretty clever; linking the successful Democratic presidents of the past to the two major international incidents of the last 70 years – FDR & WWII / JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The best line of the speech has to be “John McCain says he will follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell; he won’t even follow him to his cave.”
Obama says he gets it. Change doesn’t come from Washington; change goes to Washington. He may be right but if he is able to maintain his unique balance of strength, substance and style…change may be coming to Washington in sixty-seven days.