Let's get right to it, shall we?
1. General John Allen
All that was missing was a giant flag behind him and the following line: "ISIS is the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly."
2. Khizir Khan
Not the smoothest delivery, but pretty darn good for a guy who was surely choked up by thoughts of his dead son and speaking in a second language. The most powerful moment of the night, emotionally speaking, and an impassioned refutation of the idea that we should ban an entire religion from entry into the American Dream.
3. Rev. William Barber
The text of the speech was, I dunno, whatever. The delivery, however, was quite impressive. As is the man's imposing figure. Seriously, he reminds me of a character in a backwoods revenge flick, you know the type: the kindly preacher whose fiery rhetoric rubs the local thugs the wrong way and who refuses to turn the other cheek after they burn down his church or something. Sure, this character always ends up dying, but his memory inspires Jason Statham (and it's always Jason Statham) to take righteous revenge.
4. Chloe Grace Moretz
It was kind of a weird programming choice: a war hero, a war hero, the family of a dead war hero, and then, um, Hit Girl from Kick-Ass. Still, she was adorably nervous.
5. Hillary Clinton
I think this might be the perfect gif for understanding the Appeal Gap between the Clintons.
Look, Bill's a pol and all pols are phonies but, if I can crib a phrase from P.J. O'Rourke, he's a phony within the normal parameters of pol phoniness. And he's phony in the sort of way that people like. The pointing at some random person he kinda-recognizes, the lip bite, the thumbs up: say what you will about Bubba, but the dude's a smoothie! He's definitely a smoothie! Hillary, on the other hand, has trouble mimicking even the most basic of human emotions. Like excitement or surprise, for example. No one reacts like that when they see balloons. It's vaguely inhuman, just on the wrong side of the Uncanny Valley.
Of course, I'm biased. It's no secret that I could never support Hillary Clinton. The clincher for me is always—always—when she starts talking about Citizens United, a Supreme Court ruling that stated, in its most basic form, that you can't pass a law that makes it illegal to criticize Hillary Clinton. Wow, Hillary Clinton wants to make it illegal for people who belong to organizations to criticize Hillary Clinton! We should definitely make her president! That's a great idea.
But even if I were Hillary-curious—even if I could set aside the fact that I disagree with her on just about everything except bombing garbage Middle East countries rife with terrorists—because I'm so Trump-resistant, watching her give a speech would pour cold water all over the idea of pulling the lever for her. She's just not good up there. I'm sorry. Her voice is caustic and grating. She has a slight case of crazy eyes, and when they bulge out as she's running down a laundry list of the things she hates about conservatives, they make her look a bit, well, evil. Her delivery is, at best, halting; as a guest on the Ace of Spades podcast once put it, she sounds like a Wheel of Fortune contestant slowly working her way through the puzzle, thinking out loud as she's going.
Almost as obnoxious as her tinny timbre are the inevitable cries of sexism when you say that you don't like listening to Hillary speak. Considering that this is a convention in which several speakers, including the VP pick, did (bad) impersonations of Donald Trump's voice in order to mock him, it takes some special stones to simply screech SEXIST whenever someone points out that Hillary's overall demeanor is quite annoying. It doesn't matter if you think Michelle Obama is a fine public speaker who knocked it out of the park a couple of nights before or if you have no complaints about Sheriff Lupe Valdez's pro-cop speech earlier in the evening. No no: the only reason you could possibly think that Hillary's performance was bad—the only reason you would note what she wore or comment upon her facial tics or highlight the incredible fakeness of her overall persona—is sexism.
Spare me. Vote for Hillary if you like. But don't try and convince me she's good at this. I've got eyes and ears.
6. Katy Perry
I don't actually have particularly strong feelings about Katy Perry's speech; I just wanted to close the post with this gif. It's my new favorite thing.