Holy shit. What a week. Excellent speeches and few momentous surprises made for a great capstone to the 2008 primary season. It was History occurring before our very eyes. Ancient curses condemning us to live in interesting times aside, I am happy to have witnessed it.

I watched Hillary Clinton’s speech with interest and an open mind. Still, she left me feeling as though her speech was less about her supporters and her party’s candidate for the presidency than it was about her own aspirations. The only saving grace was that she did not insert an ounce of discernible invective or slight against her former opponent into the speech. In short, she went through the motions and did the bare minimum for the Democratic party and Barack Obama.

Bill Clinton’s speech was good. Not great, but good. He went significantly further than Hillary in voicing his support for the Obama/Biden ticket, and after his comments and posturing on the primary campaign trail I think he needed to; if only to reposition himself as a valued former president and elder statesman instead of a feckless shill. One commentator summed up his speech by noting that President Clinton’s speech went after the current administration, and by extension the McCain campaign, as only he could. Clinton attacked the status quo with a litany of contrasts between his own tenure as president and the present debacle of governance we now endure.

Joe Biden followed with a show stopping acceptance speech. Introduced by his son, Captain Beau Biden of the Delaware National Guard – soon to be deployed to Iraq – who also serves as Delaware’s Attorney General, Senator Biden took the stage fully formed following one of the best character introduction pieces of the convention. I’m not thrilled with all of his policies as a Senator, but the man delivered for the party and for Barack Obama, and I believe he will make a dogged and tenacious Vice President.

As good as these speeches were, all of them paled in comparison to the oratorical masterpiece that was Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I’ve been a political junkie for a good portion of my life and have never, ever, seen anything like this speech. Not even in the history reels.

I watched the speech coverage on MSNBC. Chris Matthews and Kieth Olbermann are as explosive and unpredictable as they are intelligent and interesting in their analysis, and I was floored by their reactions to the speech. Matthews has suffered slings and arrows from media critics for his exuberant praise of Obama’s rhetoric and style in the past. Too often, it would seem to some, Matthews allows himself to listen to the speeches of our would-be governors not as a newsman, but as an American. And the night of Obama’s acceptance was no exception.

Following Obama’s speech the entirety of MSNBC’s analysis and commentary was conducted off camera as we were inexplicably treated to views of the crowd milling about during the inaudible closing benediction and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s adjournment. The reason for the odd camera work during what should have been the pièce de résistance of MSNBC’s Democratic Convention coverage, the culmination of their long running primary season coverage, was that Matthews was emotionally unable to appear on camera. The man was stricken, as many who heard the speech were, with patriotic fervor. You can actually hear the tears in his voice as he chokingly delivers his summations of the key moments of the speech.

It was that good.

But how did it play at home? If the anecdotal evidence I’ve collected over the past few days is any indication, Barack’s speech hit home in a big, big way. One friend confided that his father, an apolitical man in his 60’s who has never voted in an election will be going to the polls in November for Obama. Another, an independent who is a daily listener of conservative talk radio, told me that Barack Obama was definitely growing on him. That might not sound like much, but believe me that sort of sentiment is nothing short of catastrophic for the GOP come November.