As I said last night on TMJ4, if Barack Obama is elected president in November it will be largely because of this speech. But what happens when you hold up the rhetoric to a reality check? The speech was moving, eloquent, powerful -- but also filled with misleading claims, cheap shots, partisan boilerplate, and fudges.  I'll try to break it down this morning, but Powerline wasn't buying the hype.

Fireworks! The perfect end to an evening of BS slinging of historic proportions. Barack Obama is a demagogue who will stoop to any lie or distortion; the question is how many people he can fool. On that, the jury is out. The answer will emerge between now and November.

It will take some time to dissect all of the foolishness we heard tonight, but here are a few observations:

Obama outlined, in the vaguest terms possible, countless billions or trillions of new federal spending. How would he pay for it? By "closing corporate loopholes"--like what? The idea that Obama's orgy of spending can be funded by "closing corporate loopholes" is frankly childish. By increasing taxes on the top 5% of taxpayers, i.e., precisely those who are grossly over-taxed already. The top 5% already pay 60% of all federal income taxes. And by "eliminating programs that no longer work." Really? Which ones? No one seriously imagines that Obama--let alone the Democratic Congress!--has any intention of eliminating any significant government programs.

Obama says he wants to become independent of foreign oil in ten years. How? By tapping natural gas reserves. I wonder whether Obama, unlike Nancy Pelosi, understands that natural gas is a fossil fuel for which we must drill offshore, in ANWR, etc. There was perhaps some news here: Obama also came out for developing nuclear energy. But does anyone imagine that nuclear energy development would go forward in a Democratic Congress and White House? In one of his many cheap shots, Obama said that we import three times as much foreign oil as when John McCain went to Washington. That's no doubt true, because the Democratic Party has enacted legislation that makes it impossible to develop our domestic resources.

Obama said he is happy to debate John McCain about who has the judgment and temperament to guide foreign policy. Of course, he has had many opportunities to do so, and has ducked them. Does this mean that Obama will now accept McCain's challenge to a series of town hall appearances? But what about Obama's foreign policy judgment? He barely mentioned Iraq--once, in the distant past, his signature issue--but never referred at all to the surge. Obama was dead wrong on the most important foreign policy issue that has arisen during his time in the Senate, and he failed even to mention it, let alone try to justify his error.

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Ramesh Ponnuru wonders which Barack Obama we heard last night. He cxalls it an "effective but dishonest" speech.

Everyone knew that Barack Obama can give a good speech, and he did just that tonight. The Obama we heard from was an attractive figure. Too bad he doesn’t exist.