O Is For Outstanding

He did it.

Barack Obama went out in front of 75,000 people at Mile High Stadium/Invesco Field and stood tall, stared down the GOP talking points, and punched them right in the face.

This was the sort of tough, in-your-face, unabashedly proud liberalism that we haven't seen since John F. Kennedy. No triangulation, no ducking, no holding back. Barack Obama lined up George Bush and John McCain and hit them in their face with all the tired garbage we have been subjected to for eight years now.

• "I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

  You make a big election about small things."

• "For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy -- give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is -- you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps -- even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

  Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America."

• "And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

  I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States."

• "We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans -- have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

  As commander in chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home."

• "These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

  But what I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

  The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America -- they have served the United States of America.

  So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first."

This was simply amazing. He wrote it himself. He sat down for weeks on end and worked at it, and then he went out and smacked the living hell out of Bush, McCain, and all the silly, squabbling, SMALL complaints from the GOP. "He's presumptious, he's speaking from the temple of Obama, he's a celebrity, he's not a POW, dammit!" is all we've gotten from these useless fucktards. We ducked these things in the past, but not tonight. Tonight Obama walked out there, took their arguments, and threw them right back in their face. "They make a big election about small things."

That line defined the GOP's methods of attack for twenty years now, and for the first time, somebody called them on it, and did it with a ridiculously large audience watching. There are a lot of Americans tonight who watched this speech and will wake up in the morning with a new outlook about the GOP, and it won't be a positive one. They got owned by the greatest speaker of our generation (sorry, Bill) and even Pat Buchanan loved the speech. It was that good.

To John McCain, I'd say watch your back, but Obama doesn't strike from behind. As he showed tonight, he walks up and punches you right in the face. There's 68 days to go. Get used to it.