The Democrats convene

Tonight was opening night for the Democratic convention, and you had to be impressed with the speeches. Well, maybe not had to. If you are a Republican or a Nader groupie you wouldn't have been impressed, of course, and if you think you've heard it all before from other political figures in the past you won't have been terribly impressed either. But, after discounting for the jadedness that comes from seeing too many politicians stand but fail to deliver, tonight's speeches were still pretty good.

Americans pay little attention to speeches any more and that's a shame. In an earlier century you weren't considered much of a politician if you couldn't keep a speech going for at least two hours. The Gettysburg Address was belittled because Lincoln delivered it in something like three minutes. By modern standards (that is, by modern television entertainment-disguised-as-news standards), that would have been two minutes and 45 seconds too long. Too short for a real speech, too long for a sound bite. Abe Lincoln would have difficulty getting elected in 2004 (assuming we could resurrect him and not have him look his age).

I once heard Fuller Warren, Florida's governor in the early 1950's, warming up a crowd for a Miami man running for governor. Warren was from Blountstown, a sawmill town in the Panhandle, and the last of the old-style orators. The Miami man needed all the help he could get in the Panhandle and Warren did his best. I can still see him on the outdoor platform they'd set up for the event, a short pugnacious man with flowing silver hair, pounding his fists in the air while saying all manner of insulting things about Republicans. It was great entertainment. The poor Miami man didn't look or sound so interesting by the time his turn came to speak.

Now we have every speech followed by talking heads, analyzing this and that while the newsguys back in the studio are boiling it down to the 15-second sound bite. It's no wonder we ignore them. Bring me back the old-time orators, and send the talking heads out for pizza.