Convention, redux

I've heard so many rave reviews of Senator Obama's speech the other night that I'm almost sorry I missed it. But I suspect that if I had seen it I would have been critical, thinking that it was built on Megan McArdle's template -- which, itself, was but an echo of e.e. cummings great poem:

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water