If you can get the full text of Sen. Barrack Obama’s speech to Emily’s List last week, let me know. He invoked former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who said if he were a Democrat, his message would be “Had enough?” I only saw part of the speech on CSPAN. The senator delivered a well crafted overall message for Democrats. Missing, of course, is what he would do instead. That still needs to be answered, but this was nice positioning.
UPDATE: Speaking of Gingrich, his appearance this morning on “Meet the Press” reconfirmed for me just how overrated Tim Russert is, and why lazy reporters are a real challenge for those who want to deliver a different message. Russert lives for the “gotcha” moment. Many reporters do, and consequently, they don’t listen. Like Russert, they have a list of questions they ask and never bother to listen and challenge many statements.
When asked about the NSA collecting phone records, Gingrich started off by saying that first of all, the collection is legal. He then went on to make his point that Americans support such invasions of privacy to be secure. Russert then quoted Gingrich to try to catch him in a contradiction. But not about the legality of the records collection. It is by no means clear that what this administration did is legal, but Russert never challenged him.