The big event of the first night of the DNC convention was the speech by Michelle Obama. She spoke passionately and delivered the speech well, but unlike the teary-eyed conventioners shown on the convention floor, I wasn't so moved. Her delivery was good, but the substance of her message was the same old banal platitudes we've come to expect of the Obamas; a lot of flowery rhetoric that seemed contrived, and was designed to appeal to the nanny state liberals. She succeeded in painting a picture of a family that loves their country, but, like a paint-by-numbers oil painting, it was not original nor unexpected.

In speaking to the choir, she was successful. Her mission was to unring the bell of her previous negative comments, and to those who might be eager to sign the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge, she probably succeeded. As a potential first lady, she showed that she was eloquent and had some grace, but probably would have been more graceful had she chose a dress which did not expose her bra straps. As a speaker she was confident, and in designing her message, she succeeded in choosing the right words and phrases to bolster the core of her mission, which was to try to show herself a recipent of the American dream, and that we are wrong to question her patriotism or the love of her country.

Of course, I don't buy it. It was another speech in the vein of her presumptive nominee husband, a lot of sound and fury that signify nothing. The conventioners who are already in the camp of H. were obviously moved, but the only apparent substance in the speech was nothing but empty calories. To those who already believe H. is the candidate who is going to change the world it was pure manna, but to anyone who has questions about the H. family, those questions remain.