McCain's clarion call for national sacrifice is his own poetry, bad as it may be. If he's going to invoke a long twilight struggle with a cosmic enemy, he'll use some purple rhetoric mixed with Republican patriotic babble. I don't see how it sells, but maybe this country is nostalgic for old men, old wars, and the old codes of honor.

I'm sure you've read Glenn Greenwald expound on this phenomenon.

Conversely, the Enemy they are facing down (from a safe distance) is not merely threatening or evil or scary or formidable. No, it's much, much more than that. This is the greatest Enemy that exists on the planet, the most cunning and nefarious and evil force the world has ever seen -- not just now, but for all of human history. There is nothing remotely like the depravity and power of this particular Enemy -- and there never has been. Ever. Everything these faux-warriors face and defend is superlative; there has never, ever been a war like the one they are waging (inside their heads). None of the old rules apply. This is all unique, unknown, the first and most important of its kind.

Ezra, perhaps you remeber the episode of Hardball where sacrifice and drafts and 100,000 more troops came up with McCain (live at Iowa State University), McCain tied himself in knots when his call for 100,000 more troops was exposed as patently phony, when the "generals" lack or more troops was brought up. McCain was reduced to mumbling "your bias is showing, your bias is showing"

McCain isn't the GOP sacrifical lamb, since he clearly exceeds the designated limits for lamb. He's mutton, as in mutton-head.

Contrast tonight:

McCain and wife in front of a sign, clearly speaking straight ahead to a teleprompted. Not dead or even alive, just animatronic.

Obama speaking in front a arena-sized crowd of whooped-up supporters and speaking at length with passion. I think he also mentioned that the old ways, and the old men were the path to past.

Insert knife... twist slowly.

With McCain, it's always midnight in America, and did you just hear a weird noise downstairs?

That is the most concise and accurate summation of the Republican worldview I've ever read. I'm going to use it to explain to my eight year-old the difference between Democrats & Republicans.

It's worse than midnight in America. Listen to this passage from his speech (my transcription, and the copy editors are off tonight):

"Will the next president have the experience and judgment and strength of purpose to respond to each of these developments in ways that strengthen our security and advance the global progress of our ideals? Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan,* and sittting down without preconditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons?"

Let's see, from my scorecard it has all three elements Bush used to gin up support for the Iraq war: gross hyperbole, accusations of terrorist-coddling, and lies. A trifecta!

It's worse than midnight in America. Listen to this passage from his speech (my transcription, and the copy editors are off tonight):

"Will the next president have the experience and judgment and strength of purpose to respond to each of these developments in ways that strengthen our security and advance the global progress of our ideals? Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan,* and sittting down without preconditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons?"

Let's see, from my scorecard it has all three elements Bush used to gin up support for the Iraq war: gross hyperbole, accusations of terrorist-coddling, and lies. A trifecta!

Who cares about McCain.
Didn't you see how change and hope won big tonight?

For the first time in my adult life, I'm really proud of the Democratic Party.

I's so happy, I could faint!

John McCain is not going to be able to go negative on Baracks misspent youth and his wife's inability to be proud of the country.....
I heard McCain spent five and a half years of his youth living in a Hotel in Southeast Asia...what did he ever do for his country?

Most republicans cannot deal with the fact that the USSR is gone. They try to magnify 20,000 radical Islamists into a world beating force.

Regarding the comment at 4 AM in the morning: "Change and hope won big tonight ... I'm really proud of the Democratic Party."

I live in Berkeley California, and many of my leftist friends repudiate the Democratic Party for the usual reasons: it serves wealth and power, it's pro-military, controlled by lobbyists, etc.

But Obama and his grassroots campaign are telling quite a different story, gathering together a new, idealistic, chance-taking Democratic Party.

What I'm asking myself this morning is this: will my radical friends, some of whom have been sitting on their duffs for a decade or two or three, find inspiration in this renewal of the Democratic Party? Will they roll up their sleeves now and get to work?

A chance to really shift our country forward in a progressive direction may only come along a few times in a lifetime. This may be one of those times. I hope we'll suspend our disbelief, during this election season at least, and join this new, grassroots social movement.

The contrast in Obama vs McCain is almost the best we could ask for. McCain has looked terrible since grabbing presumptive nominee status, he doesn't do frontrunner well. That said, I expect him to hit his stride at some point, perhaps enough to give us a scare, but I just think his moment has passed.

Also to the anonymous McCain fan, while McCain's ordeal in Vietnam was heroic, the Presidency isn't a lifetime acheivement award. It's about the future, and McCain doesn't much to offer the future but four more years of Bush-McCain policies.

Listening to his victory speech tonight, you'd have thought he was running against the Soviet Union. To some degree, that's an ideological necessity: His worldview doesn't work without a "transcendent challenge of our times."

Indeed. That is one of the things that strikes me as so deliciously ironic about the "9/11 changed everything crowd" (well, besides the fact that they were criticizing Clinton when he went after terrorists before 9/11, etc, etc.): the degree to which in fact their rhetoric bespeaks that nothing has changed in their mindset from the Cold War days except the name of the "enemy".

As Michael Moore (whom we can ignore because he's fat) pointed out, certain elements in our society need a new Cold War. And now we've got one ... hmmmmmm ...

I heard McCain spent five and a half years of his youth living in a Hotel in Southeast Asia...what did he ever do for his country?

AJ, Anonymous may mean this as pro-McCain snark, but what was in PT Barnum said about underestimating the intelligence of Americans?

There are some pretty low information voters out there who will indeed think the Hanoi Hilton was a hotel in Asia.

Some politicians ask us to build, McCain demands that we protect, retrench, and sacrifice.

Ask Jimmy Carter how well that works as a campaign strategy.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

-- Henry Louis Mencken

Ask Jimmy Carter how well that works as a campaign strategy.

What works, apparently, is to tell each group how much you will help them and lead them to the public trough.

Health care for everyone, $4,000 a year for college, every year.
Raise minimum wages every other year
The list goes on and on and on...and not one word about how he plans to pay for it.
Well, we ALL know how he plans to pay for it, so buckle up kiddies as your taxes go through the roof!!

The Iraq War, at this point, doesn't lend itself to sacrifice, at least not unless he wants to up the surge to 400,000 and institute a draft.
You mean we can have guns and butter too? I guess you're right as long as the costs of the war remain off budget and we continue to shove the veterans of this adventure under the rug.

It just scares me to death to think that there are people who actually think the Hanoi Hilton was a hotel!!! Do your homework before you vote for God's sake. Those 5 1/2 years McCain spent in S.E. Asia were in a prison camp you fool!!! He endured relentless torture. That's what he did for his country...what have you done?