Shhhhh . . . Don't Tell Anyone (DNC Day III)

by Cliopatria

Welcome to Rebunk’s Day Three Coverage of the Democratic National Convention, live from Boston, via Odessa, Texas. Now I realize why even I, a staunch party loyalist, never watch gavel-to-gavel coverage of these things. After a certain point, you reach saturation coverage. I am a political junkie, a policy wonk, a great big giant nerd. And by the night of the third day, I get bored to tears with much of the folderol, pomp, and circumstance.

I will, however, thank God for C-Span, so that I can at least watch the proceedings without the incessant bloviations of the chattering classes who can tell us all what to think and why and what it all means, as if Bob Graham’s speech somehow represented a tipping point on which the entire election, the fate of the free world, teeters. It is quite tough enough to sit through Graham’s speech without hearing it rehashed and filtered through the lens of that insufferable gasbag twit Tucker Carlson or that social climbing hick James Carville. C-Span is a good thing. Not ESPN-good, maybe not even Spike TV-good, but it may well be “Hey, PBS, you lookin’ at me?”-good.

Another very good thing? The Daily Show with John Stewart. I am grateful for its wit. I am grateful for its scathing insights. But more importantly, I am grateful for the fact that after a few hours of everybody taking themselves so damned seriously there is some source that tries to penetrate it with a healthy dose of mockery and cynicism. But if it were mere mockery and cynicism, it would just be a more politicized Saturday Night live. On a regular basis, The Daily Show is also insightful; and smart and interesting. And very, very funny.

What of tonight’s speeches? The fact is that most of them went by like highway mile markers. It’s not that you don’t notice them periodically. It’s just that most of them are not that memorable. I would say there were two, or possibly three truly memorable speeches tonight, and even that simply by the measure of the convention and not in historical terms or even political terms.

The first of these was Al Sharpton’s speech. I was holding my breath on this one. It doesn’t matter how much he tries to redeem himself. it does not matter how much he comes through with the only memorable quote anytime he is on stage. It does not matter that when he is being reasonable he can be insightful and smart and compassionate and funny. For too many of us, the one image from which Sharpton can never recover is the Tawana Brawley nightmare in the 1980s and Sharpton’s subsequent years of grandstanding and playing the race card and standing out as equal parts entertaining buffoon and dangerous demagogue. And so Sharpton’s time on stage, for all some of us were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had grown and changed and reformed but who would never give him our vote, was something we dreaded. And yet he not only acquitted himself well, but he gave a speech that rose to the rafters and clearly grabbed members of the audience the Democrats need to make sure to grab, to get on their feet, to feel and believe and hope. By that standard, Sharpton did his job. He ought not to be talking about foreign policy. But he did, and when he did there were some cringe-inspiring moments. but for those of us who feared that he might well go off the deep end, there was a moment of relief when instead he used his best speakers intonation and got the crowd rolling. Too much of this and the convention would have been a farce. Too little and it would have been a joke. there were a few moments where I generally found myself really into Sharpton’s speech, where he evoked all of the emotions he intended to. I’ll neither forget nor will I forgive him entirely for Tawana Brawley, but as far as speeches in the early evening on the Wednesday of the convention, I thought he earned some points.

The second speech is directly tied to the first, Senator Graham must have seriously pissed someone off in the National Committee, because putting him after Sharpton was like following a bottle of Jack Daniels with a handful of barbiturates. Probably not smart. Graham is not the most dynamic guy in the world. And he is a little on the peculiar side (perhaps between entries on darning socks and changing ink pens, Graham said something nasty about Terry McCauley in his infamous diaries?). And so placing him after the very dynamic, and the very crowd pleasing Sharpton, placing him on the rostrum while Sharpton’s people were still in a high speed wobble, well that just was not smart. You don’t have to put another firebrand up next to him, but couldn’t this be the time for one of the throwaways rather than the time for a still respected senior senator who undoubtedly deserved a little better?

The final memorable speech of the night was the centerpiece, john Edwards’ address to the convention. I thought he did a good job. he certainly stayed on message, and I loved the line about destroying the terrorists. If Kerry makes that point clear half as well, President Bush is going to have his work cut out for him. The only real criticism I have of the Edwards speech, and this is hardly all that critical, is that he did not answer the one question some might have of him: Is he ruthless enough to do the traditional job of the #2 slot, which is to be the attack dog, to say the things that the candidate is not supposed to? Now maybe the Kerry-Edwards ticket will not work that way. Or maybe Edwards will be stealthy about it and thought that the goal for tonight was to perpetuate this positive unity that the Fleet Center has exuded for the last three days. I am not certain. I am obviously inclined to think this way, but on the whole, I really thought he did a great job and validated Kerry’s faith in him. Many of you, I am certain, believe that I am wrong. But so far, even if I am only maintaining my blanket (well, sort of0 coverage for you, the faithful Rebunk reader, and even if it is beginning to wear on me, my generally positive impressions continue to hold sway.

By the way, my insider’s understanding is that even if it takes several ballots and shifty machinations in smoke-filled rooms, John F. Kerry is going to emerge as the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States of America tonight. Details are sketchy, but I understand he served in Vietnam. I’m sure we’ll get the background over the next few days on this scrappy underdog from Massachusetts.

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Derek Charles Catsam - 8/4/2004

Mr. Shcherban --
I am not certain what you are arguing here. Your points are not especially clear. I am a historian. I am a liberal democrat. these are facts. You may disagree with me, but I am quite certain that you have ni right to start determining my biography.
That there were no factual advantages in the Soviet Union, or none that i woul think worthy of consideration, certainly does not impugn my standing as either a liberal or a Democrat. I do not have a blanket stance on Communism, though on the whole it was a colossal failure, in point of fact. It was catastrophic for the millions who lived under it and the millions more who died trying to resist it. that some communists acknowledged some favorable aspects of capitalism and that many capitalists would not aknowledge the same about communists is not a useful claim, because to my mind, and to the mind of most reasonable people, they do not start off on equal moral grounds. that would be like claiming that integrationists have to take segregationists as equally valid. Why? All sides do not necessarily deserve equal time or equal claims.
I believe on the communist question that while i am glad they did not take control as the dominant power, the communists were on the right sie of the struggle in South Africa. Nominally the SACP is still part of the ANC governing coalition. In that case they were wrong on the smaller issues but right on the bigger ones.
What on earth you find so objectionable about the post to which you are responding is beyond me. Why you think that historians are not allowed to have public opinions in the public sphere is astounding, though not as astounding as the fact that as soon as you assert that foolishness you go on to try to explain to me why I do not have the right opinions. How dopey.
As for "who Derek Catsam" is -- I'm just another junior faculty member trying to make a career and write with integrity and maybe a bit of verve, and if I find a forum for that outside of academic venues, well, good for me. But more significantly, i guess I'm the guy whose post you bothered to respond to on whose blog you were reading in order to do so.
But since your generalizations and suppositions (are) mostly accurate all the time, I guess the question is, why is someone like you bothering with someone like me.
He's "unbiased and objective," he says. Egads. At least some of us have the integrity to admit our humanity and thus, perhaps, our shortcomings.
dc

Arnold Shcherban - 8/4/2004

Jonathan,

My "generalizations and suppositions", unfortunately and fortunately, mostly accurate all the time. That's my modest and main characteristic as a historian, and also, as a politico-social analyst.
Unfortunately, because I acquire a lot of advesaries
on intellectual and personal level.
Fortunately, because that way I remain objective and
unbiased.
It is extremely satisfying, but extremely rare occasion to see the same qualities demonstrated by the mainstream
American historians, which predominantly and uncritically use axiomatic approach, the way I pointed out before.
It is a pity you avoid commenting on my "radical" scenario.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/2/2004

Mr. Scherban,

My thoughts on the problems of objectivity and partisanship are a matter of public record: objectivity may be theoretically impossible, but it is nonetheless something to which we should aspire and which we can reach in practical terms, given our limited knowledge and perspectives and the vagaries of sources.

That is in our scholarship. There is no monk-like obligation to eschew engagement with political issues, or having engaged, to not pick sides based on our own evaluation of those positions. I happen to believe that historians are uniquely qualified to engage with contemporary issues, being less likely than others to mistake the present situation for something unique or something eternal, attuned to processes of change, and trained in the use of sources.

That we sometimes fail in our attempts to be objective in scholarship does not mean that we always fail, and that we are partisan in our public life does not mean that our scholarship is in any way distorted. Your generalizations and suppositions are meaningless in concrete terms.

Arnold Shcherban - 8/2/2004

Are you for real, Jonathan?

Deliberately or not, the majority of American historians
constantly mix up two different issues: ideology, or bias or partisanship and objectivity, i.e. concrete truth
as forced on us by facts and informal logic.
Such a mix-up has been rejected by the very Western civilisation thinking, they apparently consider themselves the true representatives of, a couple of centuries ago.

Let's take a "radical" actual scenario.
Some communists, eg., publicly acknowledge many definite socio-economic advantages of modern capitalist society, 'cause otherwise they would contradict statistics or/and logic or/and common knowledge and would be considered not
historians, but clowns of history.

However, I read no article or book, written by any "liberal democrat", as Mr. Catsam calls himself, that would acknowledge, eg., ANY definite FACTUAL socio-economic advantage of the former socialist Russia or other so-called "communist" countries of the past or present.

Many, mostly ideological and social ideas and concepts are taken by American historians as the indisputable axioms, often despite a volume of contradicting historical facts. Since the answers are effectively assumed at the start or based on the false premises, the
false conclusions invariably follow. On top of that historical analysis itself turns out to be largely redundant, at the best, subordinated to the abovementioned premises.

Thus, your answer to my question is not an answer of
a civilised man of 21st century, and even less - of a modern historian.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/1/2004

The answer is no, the historian does not have to be a non-partisan, unbiased observer at all times.

Mr. Catsam is indeed an historian, and one who has come to his biases and partisanship by honorable and thoughtful process, which makes it doubly (triply?) legitimate for him to say whatever he bloody well pleases.

Arnold Shcherban - 8/1/2004

Can and must a historian be a non-partisan, unbiased observer (at least as much as possible in today's circumstances) - that is a question?

If the answer is 'yes', Mr. Catsam is not a historian,
regardless of the volume of his works.

Ben H. Severance - 7/29/2004

For the most part, I liked what I heard in Edwards speech. His Populist message came through loud and clear. But I actually found his statements about pursuing terrorist rather awkward. He sounded too much like Bush, although I thought it significant that where Bush usually talks about "bringing terrorists to justice," Edwards explicitly vowed that a Democratic administration would "destroy" the terrorists. In that sense, Edwards has cast the Democrats as tougher in the war on terror than the Republicans. Still, the hardline rhetoric caught me off guard coming from the normally mild-mannered Edwards. Anyway, the veep looks good and he should do well in his debate with the snarly, mean-spirited Dick Cheney