His words hit all the right notes. Repeated themes he stumped on. The repeal of DOMA, signing “an inclusive hate crimes bill into law”, and the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (although he did add that for him to sign anything on DADT, it would take an act of Congress). He rightfully placed the Stonewall riots as part of a larger struggle for justice, and noted the progress that has been achieved since that night 40 years ago. Took the duck ring tone in stride and even acknowledged the impatience with his work thus far.

But aside from the words and adulation of the crowd (which really isn’t strange considering it is the White House), there was nothing offered. Nothing. No game plan. No dates. Just a promise of work and this line:

“We’ve been in office six months now.  I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.”

People clapped with pleasure at this, but what else could they have done? If you trust Obama then these are stirring words and it’s hard not to be moved when a president of the United States talks about gay rights. But it’s never a good idea to trust the promises of a pol. I have no doubt that Obama will work on those things, but if the scene gets too hot (as it will), he will turn pragmatic and move on. To keep that from happening we need to keep dissenting and giving loud grief when his administration stumbles (DOMA defense anyone?).  These folk have the right idea.

PS: Here is some unsolicited advice to the Jackson family: muzzle Joe Jackson. He’s not helping.

There are three assumptions I make about American politics: 1) blacks vote for Democrats out of habit, 2) Republicans could increase their numbers of black votes if they put the race stuff away, and 3) Republicans are never going to get a nice slice of black voters because they are tone deaf when it comes to race.

Are Republicans inherently racist ? Naw, not anymore than folk on my side of the political aisle (yes Virginia there are liberals who are no different from David Duke when the talking point is race), but the heavy hitters in the GOP are unable to talk about black folk minus a heavy dose of patronizing. Take former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Maybe it’s hard to expect much from a man who said some bat doo nonsense about gays and lesbians, but if the GOP is going to follow the advice of the late Jack Kemp on race, Santorum needs to either shut his mouth or pick up his game.

Here is the former senator complaining about President Barack Obama’s date with the First Lady this past Saturday.

My concern isn’t Santorum quoting figures. He has every right to ruminate on problems in the “black community”; however, the tone needs to stay away from the plantation. “Oh you crazy colored Obamas. Sure you have Ivy League degrees, and money in the bank, but you really need to hang out at the local bar if you are going go on a date. Dinner and a play. Come on now? You all ain’t white. Go drink that Mad Dog and be an example to your peoples.”

The former senator would never make this type of suggestion to a white couple because race, or any identity marker, trumpets individuality. In the world of Santorum the Obamas are not a couple. They are a BLACK couple and need to act accordingly because it confuses poor black couples who don’t understand the Obamas are richer than them.

Thanks fo’ the advice Massa Rick. Wheres would we be without youse wise wordings.

Today I’m glad I live a TV free life. If I had to listen to talking heads go on and on and on and on about President’s Obama’s first 100 days there would be damage done to my person-hood. I’m perplexed by the arbitrary nature of the number and don’t know what it means in a president’s overall term. Will these days be talked about 2 years from now? Tend to doubt it, but the game is being played so might as well get my shots in.

Time magazine has a handy dandy grade-card. The First Lady’s grade surprises. Isn’t she Stokely Carmichael in a dress? Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, earned a grade inflated A- (no one is asking but I would give him a B-) and Tim Geithner’s ranking, seems about right.

Of course if President Obama and his team was being graded by some of you here, there would be a lot of Fs. It’s not saying anything new that when it comes to gay stuff, the president has been slow. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is still in place and from all indications it looks like it will be around for awhile. Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, penned an op-ed asking the Commander-in-Chief to abide by his campaign promise.

A fair request, but gay Democrats have to be honest that when it comes to fulfilling promises to gay voters the Democratic party has a checkered hisotry at best. One-hundred days is too short of a time to judge a president, but can we really be surprised that thus far the rhetoric has not matched the reality when it comes to gay issues?

Okay this is pure catty mindless  dish but I  couldn’t resist. Hopefully Beyonce has good security because Etta James is ticked off and looking to beat someone down. Seems  the blues legend is upset that the singer, who portrayed her in the movie Cadillac Records, did a rendition of the James’ hit “At Last” for President and First Lady Obama the night of the Inauguration.

“I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song, she gonna get her ass whupped,” James told a Seattle audience. “I can’t stand Beyonce….Going to be singing my song that I’ve been singing forever.”

James also isn’t that pleased with the Commander-in-Chief either.

“You know your President, right? You know the one with the big ears? He ain’t my President.”

If Sean Hannity were a smart fella (smile) he would  call her people and book James on his show to find out what the deal is.

Now the anger of Ms. James contradicts everything that has come before. Beyonce and James acted liked best buds during the premiere of Cadillac Records and James’ son reported to the Daily News that his mom saw Beyonce’s Inauguration performance and was pleased.

Inconsistency though is one of the rules of diva hood. Glad I listen to divas like James as opposed to writing about them. That would be too much pressure.

Blame Ta-Nehisi Coates for this blog entry. I’ll take the usual responsibility but the rest is on Coates. Recently Williams was opining on Bill O’Reilly’s show and described Michelle Obama, the week old First Lady, as “Stokely Carmichael in a dress.”

Sigh. What is there to say about this nonsense? When was the last time anyone heard the First Lady make a speech about Black Power? To flip it, can anyone point to Carmichael’s (Kwame Ture) position on working mothers? Anyone? Ahhh, but in the world of Williams Michelle Obama is a black woman and therefore can be reduced to caricuture. And here is the kicker, Williams feels no need to offer proof for his theory. But why offer proof when you throw out a line that will get you a chuckle at the next high powered cocktail soiree?

Williams does have an interesting pedigree. He was a reporter for the Washington Post, is the author of books that are required reading, and now works for Fox News and NPR. Apparently he cried when Obama was sworn in as president; however, despite this historical knowledge, Williams can’t seem to break free of a small vision when it comes to race and gender. I’m sort of surprised he didn’t say in her private moments, Michelle Obama is really Shug from the movie Hustle and Flow.

If Williams has a concern about the First Lady it would have been nice if he described it without resorting to the sloppy “she’s like this scary black man” rhetoric.

RIP: John Updike.

While last night will be remembered for Michelle Obama painting the lives of her and her husband in hues  middle America understands (which is sort of annoying because black-American life and history is as American as baseball and apple pie), the night really belonged to old lion Ted Kennedy. Recovering from complications due to brain cancer, the Democratic stalwart promised the cheering crowd that come early 2009 he “will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate.”

Kennedy’s presence was all about passing the torch and he made it clear his political struggles and dreams have been picked up by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

“There is a new wave of change all around us and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination, not merely victory for our party but renewal for our nation,” Kennedy said. “This November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans . . . With Barack Obama, and for you and for me, the country will be committed to his cause.”

And one cause is to mend the breach that has convinced us how different we are from each other.

“Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics of race and gender and group against group and straight against gay.”

Like any political titan, Kennedy was willing to throw a curve because I’m willing to bet most in the audience were not expecting to hear a nod to gay inclusion. But maybe that is why Senator Kennedy has earned so much good will among rank and file Democrats. Ultimately they understand he’s going advocate for those who have been pushed aside.

She didn’t wear an Afro, no “Black Power” fist in the air, and gratitude toward the country she lives in. Sure the Republicans will call it an act but the “angry black woman”  memo was killed tonight.

Aside from that, there was also the metaphysical connection about how all our stories, no matter if your family has been here for 200 years or 20 minutes, are somehow connected and similar. Barack’s white mother taught her son the same values Michelle’s black parents  passed down to her. This is the crux of the Obama campaign and what his wife made a little more concrete tonight.

“Barack will finally bring the change we need,” seconded Obama’s wife, Michelle, casting her husband – bidding to become the first black president – as a leader with classic American values.

She pledged he would end the war in Iraq, revise a sputtering economy and extend health care to all.

Democrats opened their four-day convention in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains as polls underscored the closeness of the race with Republican John McCain. And there was no underestimating the challenges confronting Obama.

He faces lingering divisions from a fierce battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination, tough ads by McCain and his Republican allies, and a reminder that racism, too, could play a role.

“There are people who are not going to vote for him because he’s black,” said James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union. “And we’ve got to hope that we can educate people to put aside their racism and to put their own interests No. 1.” He spoke in an Associated Press interview.

Kennedy and Obama’s wife were the bookends of an evening that left the delegates cheering, one representing the party’s past, the other its present.

“The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on,” Kennedy said in a strong voice, reprising the final line of a memorable 1980 speech that brought a different convention to its feet. The senator has been undergoing treatment for a malignant brain tumor.

Obama’s wife said it was time to “stop doubting and start dreaming.”

Moments later, Obama appeared via satellite from Missouri, drawing cheers from delegates.

Convention planners hoped the prime time address by Obama’s wife would begin the work of casting the Illinois senator as a leader with classic American values.

Among them, she said: “that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.”

The convention’s opening gavel fell with Obama and Clinton still struggling to work out the choreography for the formal roll call of the states that will make him the party nominee.

Michelle Obama included a tribute to her husband’s former rival, crediting her with having placed “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” that constrains women’s ambitions.

“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is Barack Obama’s convention,” the former first lady told reporters early in the day. And yet, she said, some of her delegates “feel an obligation to the people who sent them here” and would vote for her.

Kennedy’s speech was an implicit appeal to her delegates – and the 18 million voters who supported her in the primaries – to swing behind Obama.

He said the country can meet its challenges with Obama. “Yes we can, yes we will,” he said, echoing the presidential candidate’s own signature refrain.

In one of their first orders of business, delegates ratified a party platform tailored to Obama’s specifications. It backs “complete redeployment within 16 months from Iraq,” as well as health care for all, a new economic stimulus package and higher taxes on families earning over $250,000 a year.

“The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right,” it said.

As the delegates took their seats in the Pepsi Center, Obama campaigned in Iowa, the first in a string of swing states he is visiting en route to Colorado.

Obama delivers his acceptance speech on Thursday at a football stadium, before a crowd likely to total 75,000 or more. Then he and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, his vice presidential running mate, depart for the fall campaign.

If the opening night’s convention program had a feel-good quality, not so the intensifying campaign outside the hall.

Obama struggled to quash a television commercial financed by an independent Republican group that linked him to a 1960s-era radical – before it could damage his candidacy as the infamous Swift Boat ads helped sink John Kerry four years ago.

He also shipped a new commercial that used humor to depict McCain as an extension of the Bush administration, the latest in a series of negative advertisements by both sides.

“Really can’t explain the price of gas, or what has happened to the middle class,” the announcer sings to the tune of Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World.” With McCain and Bush appearing together on the screen, the announcer says, “Do we really want four more years of the same old tune?”

While the White House is the biggest prize of the election year, prominent Democrats expressed optimism in Associated Press interviews about major gains in the fall in races for the House and Senate.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said 70 or more House seats are competitive, the majority of them currently in Republican hands.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said fashioning a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Senate majority was a stretch. But he added that Democrats lead for five seats currently in Republican hands, and several others are competitive.

Howard Dean, the party chairman, rapped the opening gavel precisely on schedule at 3 p.m. Mountain Time – before only a smattering of delegates.

“We are ready to compete in all 50 states in November,” he said, even though Obama has already written off large portions of the South and Mountain West.

Schumer and Van Hollen said only a small fraction of Clinton’s delegates remained unreconciled to Obama’s triumph in the bruising primaries of the winter and spring.

Perhaps so, but they were vocal about it, and officials said one of the issues under discussion was whether to permit a noisy floor demonstration by Clinton’s supporters when the former first lady’s name is placed in nomination on Wednesday night.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest child of the late Robert F. Kennedy and a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, said the animosity that some Clinton delegates feel toward Obama is worsening. “There’s a moment that you want to enjoy your bitterness,” she said, although she emphasized that she is supporting Obama.

Obama told reporters that his former rival and her husband, former President Clinton, “couldn’t have been more clear” in their support for his candidacy.

But the sniping was impossible to miss.

“I’m getting a lot of calls and e-mails, especially from women, who are quite upset that she was not vetted (for vice president) even though senator Obama said she was on the short list,” said Lanny Davis, a longtime Clinton loyalist.

All the talk about disunity was grating on some.

“To stay wallowing in all of this is not productive,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

“So we can talk about this forever, or we can talk about how we’re going to take our message to the American people, to women all across America, to see the distinctions” between Obama and McCain.