Infomercial or documentary?

The family's in bed, so watched Obama's informercial on You-Tube.


A few things that struck me:
  1. He talks about how his mother woke him up at 4.30 in the morning every day from the time he was eight and made him study.  When he grumbled, she'd say "It's no picnic for me either, buster."  The camera cuts away to his nomination speech in Invesco field.  Extremely powerful, for what's unsaid: that this is the promise of America: work hard and you can be anything you want to be.
  2. I expected a rousing speech. I wasn't prepared for a documentary.  A documentary with excellent photography, scripting and narration (by Obama himself) ... Wouldn't be surprised to see this one do an Al Gore with an Emmy/Oscar nomination. 
  3. Is Wednesday a little early for this?  With the election on Tuesday, any post-informercial bump will die down a bit.  But then the weekend has poor viewership, and Monday is too late.
  4. Some good ideas (energy efficiency, alternative energy, conservation) but still nodding to lousy ones (clean coal?).  At least, no mention of ethanol.
  5. His health care plan is not universal.  All the information technology in the world is not going to save $2500/yr per family.  Hope Congress comes up with a better alternative.
  6. Such careful diversity for a supposedly post-racial candidate.  Equal numbers of men and women.  One black person for every five whites.
  7. No attack on McCain/Palin. Not even a subtle aside.
  8. He had Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who mentioned Warren Buffett. But no Warren Buffett!

No comments:

Post a Comment