Ted Sorenson, JFK’s speech writer and strategist was asked to write the acceptance speech for the winner of Dem nomination (any Dem nominee) in 2008. It’s brilliant, eloquent and painful to read for a number of reasons. First, it is a catalog of how low the dialog has fallen in our nation and its politics. I can’t imagine any of the DNC/DLC hacks writing any of this with half the specificity and power. The second part that makes it painful is that in our soundbite culture, I’m not sure any of this sticks. How does this compete with Paris Hilton? Or the Ann Coulter/Elizabeth Edwards travesty? Are Betty and Bob Sixpack out there going to stop and listen? Or are they going to reject this as that “typical blowhard crap that comes out of DC?” My guess is it’s the latter.

Sorenson writes at the level at which we should demand our officials to be communicating. He has articulated a vision for the the kind of country that a lot of us hoped America would be and once, not so long ago, was. But it has since been hijacked by media-charged religious superstition and bigotry, fear-driven fascism and sensationalist, unchecked greed and incompetence. This is the America I grew up believing in and hope would be restored. But given our American Idol/Superbowl/Plasma screen culture, fat chance.