Obamirage? Asian Times's 'Spengler' Describes 'Melancholy, Sour, Acrid' Invesco

On September 3, an Asian Times writer known only as "Spengler" described a radically different scene at Invesco Field during the final night of the Democratic Convention from that conveyed by the networks and pundits. If Spengler's take is accurate, it reveals a media elite more in the tank than even its harshest critics have imagined.

Rush Limbaugh mentioned Spengler's column during his show today (see Item 9 at the link; page will go behind Limbaugh's paid subscription wall in a week). As usual, Rush is right; it's a read-the-whole-thing item. Here's one important point Rush noted:

This guy thinks (Barack) Obama is going to lose because he has no character, he has no friends, all he has are people that he has used and stepped on as rungs of a ladder to get where he goes. He has no room for a real friendship because his angry wife, Michelle, crowds them all out.

If you think that's something, wait until you read some of Spengler's description of the atmosphere at Invesco Field on the night of Obama's Greco-Roman Oration. Rush says that what Spengler has written confirms what an unnamed friend of his relayed to him from another final-night attendee:

Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city's Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like thick smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.

..... Al Gore, the famously wooden former vice president, gave a more lively and convincing speech than Obama did."

On television, Obama's spectacle might have looked like The Ten Commandments, but inside the stadium it felt like Night of the Living Dead. The longer the candidate spoke, and the more money he promised to spend on alternative energy, preschool education, universal health care, and other components of the Democratic pinata, the lower the party professionals slouched into their seats.

..... The Democrats were watching the brightest and most articulate presidential candidate they have fielded since John F Kennedy snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And this was before John McCain, in a maneuver worthy of Admiral Chester Nimitz at the Battle of Midway, turned tables on the Democrats' strategy with the choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

..... Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals. They can smell insecurity, and the convention stank of it. Obama's prospective defeat is entirely of its own making. No one is more surprised than Republican strategists, who were convinced just weeks ago that a weakening economy ensured a Democratic victory

Especially if you follow my suggestion and read the whole thing, ask yourself, "Didn't the media (that would include Fox) see what Spengler saw? If not, why not? And if they did, why didn't we hear about it?"

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.