Twice in modern history very strong convention speeches have elevated politicians to an entirely different level of future potential and prominence. One, of course, was Barack Obama's keynote at the convention in Boston four years ago. The other, which I remember watching as a schoolboy Goldwaterite, was Ronald Reagan's speech supporting Goldwater at the San Francisco convention in 1964.I don't think Sarah Palin's speech will be in that category.She passed the "expectations" test -- despite ...

Unless you have seen it first first-hand, as part of the press scrum or as a campaign staffer, it is almost impossible to imagine how grueling the process of running for national office is. Everybody gets exhausted. The candidates have to answer questions and offer views roughly 18 hours a day, and any misstatement on any topic can get them in trouble. Why do candidates so often stick to a stump speech that they repeat ...

But it is exactly like the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. That is, an unbelievably obvious but potentially effective attempt to jiu-jitsu the standard identity politics of the moment in a way that flummoxes the Democrats. I would spell out the logic but I think it's obvious and am at a computer for only sixty seconds. The image to have in mind is not Dan Quayle: a person with quite a bit ...

Here is what's unusual about the lineup of Democratic convention speeches. Usually each convention features one very strong speech, sometimes two. Barbara Jordan with the keynote at the Democratic convention in 1976. Teddy Kennedy with his memorable (though damaging to Jimmy Carter) "the dream will never die" speech in 1980, bidding farewell to his presidential aspirations. Ronald Reagan speaking to Barry Goldwater's supporters at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1964, beginning his own ...

This wonderful article by Rebecca Blumenstein in the Wall Street Journal, about Chen Yanqing, a female Chinese weightlifter who is now a repeat Olympic gold medalist and part of the dominant Chinese weight squad I've been following on TV. The article was published a few days ago, so check it out soon in case it is one of the WSJ articles that times-out in a week and goes off the public site. A sample, from ...

Because of my recent forced immersion into the entirety of the primary debate season, I have this reaction about Joe Biden's presence on the ticket:As a questioner at Senate hearings, Biden has often been disappointing. He typically uses up too much of the time listening to himself talk, and at the end he's left with barely time enough to pose an easily escapable question like "Isn't that right?" or "I'd like to hear your reaction ...

For the last week, Beijing's skies have been, mostly, glorious. I went for a long run this afternoon, and got sunburned while doing so, a risk I had not previously feared.Out the window todaySame window two weeks ago (and much of the preceding six months) All credit to whoever and whatever made this happen, from the Chinese scientists I quoted a few months ago saying that it would play out more or less the way ...

Only one way: Just shut up when tempted to say or write anything about it. Otherwise you'll be driving people crazy with your enthusing about how useful and convenient it is, and what its potential might be, and how many elegant decisions are evident in its conception and design. I'm talking mainly about high-level functional design: what should the whole system be able to do? What functions should be built in or omitted? Rather than ...

For the first two days of the Olympics, things looked bad on the air front. Then after two big thunderstorms and the passage of a cold front, things have been nice! Confirming my oft-expressed optimism that it would all work out just in time.And after 25 months and zero outdoors runs in China, I've gone for four- or five- mile runs three times in the last week! All this along a reasonably nice flagstoned path ...

I haven't watched any gymnastics, live or on TV; don't follow the sport; and have no opinion on how old members of various teams look and how much that matters.But this new post, from the Stryde Hax blog, does an impressive technical job of finding information that has not yet been removed from caches of official Chinese sites. At face value it makes a strong circumstantial case that one of the gymnasts, the double gold-medalist ...

In several previous posts I've mentioned the paradox of Olympic tickets being flat "sold-out," yet huge tracts of seats sitting empty. Many people have written in to solve the mystery. This, from Alf Hickey, reflects the consensus view:Large amounts of empty seats are actually quite common at Chinese concerts or sporting events that claim to be "sold out." The reason for this is that a large amount of tickets are given to the bigwigs who ...

2) Medal counts, as discussed earlier. Both the "Chinese system" and the "US system" of national medal-ranking have obvious flaws. Chinese system = only gold medals matter. US system = all medals count the same. Obviously some "weighting" system would be more sensible -- say, 3 points for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze. Of course the most sensible approach would be to dump country-ranking altogether, given what an odd assortment of sports are ...

Michael Phelps, finishing second in a swimming race just now: He's the one in lane 4 touching the wall... well, second, after a guy from Serbia* in lane 5, who is already looking upward in his white cap. (Click for larger.)Yes, it was only the preliminary heats of the mens' 100m butterfly; and yes, he had the second-fastest time of the large field overall; and yes, he lost by .11 of a second; and yes, ...

Some of his pensees:If you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing. If you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim. These sorts of experiments have been done over and over again, and the results reveal the same underlying pattern. Americans usually see ...

In case you have not seen any of the (deserved) zillion other references to this at various Atlantic sites, it is very much worth reading my colleague Joshua Green's new story about what went wrong with Hillary Clinton's campaign, and the trove of memos he collected while reporting the story.Josh has done an outstanding job on this beat for a long time, starting with his definitive article nearly two years ago about how Hillary Clinton's ...

For more than a decade I've followed the genealogy of the personal-info manager now known as "Chandler." A little while ago I got a message saying that it had (finally!!!) been released.Background: Some of the earliest Paleolithic rumblings here, in the second half of an Atlantic article written in early 1996. The first half of the article describes the wacky new concept behind a approach to software called "Java," and gives quotes on that subject ...

... my theory being, I am allowed to make fun of someone's translation of Chinese into English only when I'm ready to have a Chinese person make fun of my translation of English into Chinese. And I will never be ready to do that.On the other hand: If I were going to translate something into Chinese, for a wide audience of Chinese people to read, I might possibly consider having a native Chinese speaker take ...

A little while ago a visiting VIP remarked that traveling around Beijing had been surprisingly quick and easy, despite all the warnings he'd heard."By chance, were you in an official Olympic car?" my wife asked innocently.... As it happens, he was!Jianguo Lu, looking west toward 3rd Ring Road intersection, 2pm August 9. (Lo-rez camera phone shot.) Left-hand lane: Olympic Lane. Other lanes: everyone else. Of course it's true that traffic controls have removed a lot ...

... which I get to watch live, on CCTV, rather than 11 hours from now in the US on NBC.My attitude toward Opening and Closing ceremonies is generally like my attitude toward football halftime shows: Time to go get a beer. And after about 35 minutes, that is what this ceremony has degenerated into. (There is a chance it might pick up soon, because the sappy pop-star singing looks as if it may be winding ...

... good speech by America's 43rd president in Thailand, before his arrival just now in China. Official text, opening jocularities and all, is here on WhiteHouse.gov.What made it good was that he emphasized the big picture -- that China, the U.S., and the world will be much better off if China and the US can cooperate than if they fight -- while also being clear about the values the U.S. should stand up for. After ...