Still in search of the American dream

And all of it based on fiscal rectitude and humanitarian sweep; a balanced budget; higher taxes for the exceedingly wealthy; protection for a battered middle class; profound concern for the plight of the poor and the excluded. 

And all of this accomplished via a smack down -- a meticulous taking apart and tearing to bits of every single Republican "issue," in almost excruciating detail. 

Compare it to an empty chair last week winning the shootout against an aging Hollywood icon -- not to mention a hapless Republican presidential candidate. 

And all this after First Lady Michelle Obama had knocked it out of the park the day before, or -- to subscribe to a Latino soccer metaphor -- hit un golazo!   

Michelle Obama for president? Certainly Michelle Obama for her president. Clinton was all about urgence and exigence. Michelle was all about what kind of man lives and breathes behind complex policy decisions. Compare it to the Romney couple. While it's hard to escape the explosive racial subtext, it's more a case of rich white American royalty sure of its divine entitlement versus "the usurpers" -- a struggling black couple who reached the American dream from the bottom up, based on their talent and drive. 

To quote the empty chair's interlocutor, you gotta ask yourself one question; Who you're gonna trust? 

Michelle in fact pulled a Bubba -- by directly linking her Barack's biography to President Obama's policy decisions. Can't ask for a more powerful political pitch. Example: "We were so young, so in love, and so in debt" -- because of a student loan which was higher than their mortgage. The punch line: "That's why Barack has fought so hard to increase student aid." 

Learn to forget

Still the key question trespassing all these extremely polished, sometimes fiery speeches at the Democratic convention -- from Massachusetts governor Duval Patrick to San Antonio mayor and new Latino sensation Julian Castro -- has been whether the US is better off now than four years ago. There's no possible positive evaluation if one sticks to this straitjacket. 

So the timeline was duly stretched. From Michelle to Bubba, a case was made that the real Obama as ultimate champion of the (restored) middle class American dream will only be able to fulfill, or at least start to fulfill, all the promises if he's granted a second term. 

What's certain is that Michelle and most of all Bubba were transcendental enough to make one forget, for instance, each and every aspect of Obama's troubling (to say the least) foreign policy -- from the broken promise to close Guantanamo to the drone-based shadow-war frenzy. 

Take a look at the Democratic political platform.[1] 

A confrontation with China as a possible peer competitor is more than visible under all the platitudes. The Middle East is essentially a matter of "an unshakable commitment" to "Israel's security" and "robust security cooperation" with those paragons of democracy, the petro-monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Iran is nothing else than an aggressive purveyor of "destabilizing activities."  

And all this while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hit Beijing to once again lecture the Chinese. As the Global Times[2] mercilessly put it;

"As secretary of state, Clinton fails to present Americans with this simple logic: In the long run, the US can only compete and cooperate with China on an equal footing, and it will have fewer and fewer resources to dominate and curb China."

Not to mention that Michelle and Bubba also made it possible to forget Bubba's mantra -- "it's the economy, stupid" -- in ways certainly unforeseen by the First Lady and the former President.