Political Murmur

Watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech was a bit like watching an Obama speech from last week...or last month...or three months before that.

I've been waiting for Obama to lay down specifics about what he would do as president to effect the "change we can believe in." Tonight I thought I might get my wish, as he finally said he'd spell it out in no uncertain terms.

So he said he would cut taxes, and he said he would look into clean coal fuel, and he said he would solve global warming. Oh, and end dependence on foreign oil within 10 years, as if anyone seriously thinks a president can cause such things to happen.

And that was about it, though he did make one passing reference to Russia's invasion of Georgia. One would think that the threat of a new Cold War might be worth expanding upon when running for president, but who's got time? Besides, Democrats are used to holidays from history, as they enjoyed during Clinton's eight year run.

For Obama tonight, it was back to saying that 4 more years of Bush was too much, apparently forgetting that he isn't running against Dubya. Obama even said, "Eight is enough," and the crowd took up the call, chanting "Eight is enough," over and over again, making the Mile High stadium sound like it was full of old sit-com lovers.

John McCain's old, there's no doubt about that. But Obama's message is getting even older. It's all sunshine and roses, and no specifics. Even when he is specific, he makes me wonder which books he's reading. No more dependence on foreign oil? That might be a nice way of saying "Islamic terror" without saying it, but it won't do much to endear him to Canadians. Canada exports most of its oil across the border to the United States, and gives the US more oil than anyone in the Middle East ever has (Canada comes first, Saudi Arabia second, Mexico third; so should the Mexicans be nervous, too?). When a presidential candidate starts talking about ending dependency on foreign oil, Albertans would do well to take an interest.

When McCain and Obama meet in the debates, perhaps I will learn more about Obama's plan, but I doubt it. It's the same old message of ending the Bush era. Beyond that, it's nothing I haven't heard before. Kids in college, free health care, lots of jobs, and everyone with great pension plans. Tonight he unveiled a new timetable for pulling troops out of Iraq: 16 months. And as I watched him say it, I thought, "Where'd he get that number?" Why not two? Why not twenty? He didn't bother to say.

As for where he'll get the money to pay for his health-care-mucho-jobs-et-cetera platform, Obama said that he would go through the Federal budget line by line and scratch out the money wasting items. He didn't say this as an exaggeration. He actually seemed to mean it. Which tells me that he thinks he'll have a hell of a lot of time on his hands in the Oval Office, seeing as the Federal budget is over 50, 000 pages long.

One thing you don't hear much about these days is the good job Bush has done. I know that sounds in bad taste these days, but I was amused to read an article by a Democratic university professor. He said he hated Bush but...no terror attacks in the US since 9/11, and an economy that has only begun to go soft in the past 8 months. As the professor said, "Am I missing something?" He thought Bush had done exactly what he'd set out to do, and had done it fairly well. Though the professor hated the bumbling Bush, he had to admit that things had been going pretty well since Bush got elected and re-elected. With Iraq calming down to the point where you don't see it in the news anymore, and the price of jeans at Wal-Mart still sitting at 12 dollars, you have to wonder if the professor might be right (though let's face it, in the end it was the gas prices, and not war, that turned Bush into a whipping boy; if it had been war, he'd have been out of a job back in 2004).

I wonder if Obama's message is good enough: "No more Bush." Okay...but then what? And can you do better? If so, you'd better be quick about it, or you'll find yourself a very lonely man. Wouldn't that be a change?