Chris Rock endorses Sarah Palin

Chris Rock has a line in HBO's The Black List where he says "The true, true equality is the equality to suck like the white man."

Today we see the gender incarnation of that principle in Sarah Palin, who showed just how much Hillary's candidacy freed women in politics from being defined solely on gender, but as candidates on their own merits. For she truly does suck just as much as any other small-minded, corrupt, opportunistic, and fundamentalist Republican candidate.

yes. I am proud of this.

Ryan A. is the MVP for the day. DNC debrief, film development collaboration, and lolcats accomplice. Boy is talented.

David...Brooks...well done...sir

apologies for the punctuated incredulity- I'm just...stunned. I never thought I would be this pro-Brooks, at least post-Bobos.

Then he said this: "The Democrats are in danger of doing to Obama what they did to their last two nominees: burying authentic individuals under a layer of prefab themes."

Now, we kind of go separate ways when it comes to analyzing the first night of the convention- or as I might say, Monday Night Softball- because I saw the whole "Modest roots + hard work = American Dream = Obama" theme as precisely that kind of prefab cliche.

But hey! progress, baby. Thanks for the validation, Captian Pink Tie. Keep on keepin' on.

Hillary: That's More Like It.

Rock out, girl. (Love "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits." That should totally be a movie, like a good version of Divine Secrets of something Sisterhood. Potential casting includes Bette Midler, Annette Benning, Felicity Huffman, and Phylicia Rashad.)

(update: just kidding, that casting is lame. Thanks to Ryan Anderson's assistance, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits will instead star Allison Janney, Catherine O'Hara, Francis McDormand, and Phylica Rashad.)

On topic: I'm not going to Talmudically dissect last night (others can debate whether she sufficiently made a case for Obama other than "Vote for him, he's our candidate") mostly because I think the most important refrain in that speech made the best case of all:

Were you in this just for me, or for all the people who feel invisible in this country?

There's the pathos I'm looking for, the realism we need about people's lives in America, and the admittedly weird reminder, considering the source, that politics is about all people, not just the one anointed candidate.

Barack would do well to underscore that theme. Despite the perceived messianism this campaign is about empowering citizens to feel they can "be the change [they]wish to see in the world." That's what will get us across the finish line.

Where is the DNC cello?

I truly enjoyed Michelle's speech at the DNC last night and thought it was a finely crafted debut to disengaged, undecided, and/or wary voters.

Yet the only reason I responded positively to the speech when I re-read the transcript today was that I remembered Michelle saying those words, infusing them with passion, warmth, and confidence that leavened the dense sweetness of the written text.

I understand the pragmatic softening of Michelle's persona, with heavy emphasis on her family-centered life, and the working-class roots. Though she pulls off empathy as beautifully as she does couture, the whole gestalt of the "American story" feels generic and saccharine, and that concerns me.

To be fair, I'm not just referring to Michelle. Sen. Claire McCaskill had the same refrain in her warmup speech, Michelle's bio video, the whole first night theme involved the relentless repetition of the same phrases- "American dream" "American story" "hard work" et al.- and it felt like Mad Libs, Pollster Edition.

The "American dream" is NOT a reality for many people. I have heard every Democratic candidate in my lifetime before Barack Obama use the same hollow, tired-ass slogans to people who know damn well that the forces that have concentrated our nation's wealth, or, say, callously peddle subprime Faustian loans to the working class under the guise of giving them a foothold into upward mobility - they are a lot stronger than that limp catchphrase.

I believe the Obama candidacy possesses far more substance than the DNC has shown so far, substance of the variety that awakens and empowers people to choose participation in a system that they rightly perceive is broken, and makes us believe that in doing so, we can fix it. Together.

"I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring real change in Washington. I'm asking you to believe in yours."

In the same way that Obama won over voters in Iowa, lifelong Republicans, inner-city youth, first-time adult voters, our undecided voters need to hear a real, fierce, visceral understanding of how frustrating American life can be right now, before we get to the part about how great America can be. If you skip straight to the optimism, you've already lost people who have heard this propaganda before, and have no reason to believe that this time those words carry weight.

Good thing we've already made that statement, memorably.

Listen again to Yes We Can. Pay attention to the moment at 1:58 and 2:29. The music goes into a minor key. You hear the strains of a cello, and later, a mournful violin.

1:58: "We know the battle ahead will be long."

2:29: "We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant."

and then at 2:48: "But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

DNC, lose the saccharine-coated Americana marketing. Find your cello.