I liked parts of Obama’s speech.

Yes, it was a relief to discover that he could throw a punch.

Yes, it was reassuring to see him talk so clearly about the day-to-day problems facing working Americans.

And I especially appreciated his defense of government as a positive force for change, not as an ATM for those who already have money and influence.

“What it should do,” he said, “is that which we cannot do for ourselves—protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.”

He could have gone further and argued that the government needs to provide a floor of decency for every American so no one is any longer in poverty. But at least it was a start.

However, I could have lived without seeing him do his Bill Cosby imitation yet again, telling us all to be good fathers, with a clear subtext of criticism aimed at his own black community.

I could have lived without his proposal to do away with the capital gains tax for small businesses.

And I really could have lived without his pledge to “safely harness nuclear power,” which isn’t possible, but is a huge bone to throw to some of his biggest contributors, who happen to be from that industry.

Finally, I take great exception to his claim that the Bush-Cheney foreign policy (which he insisted on calling the “Bush-McCain foreign policy”) marked a huge departure from the bipartisan foreign policy of the past decades, and to his insistence that he’d restore that consensus.

The United States was an empire before Bush-Cheney. It illegally invaded foreign countries before Bush-Cheney. And it engaged in torture before Bush-Cheney.

The Bush-Cheney foreign policy may have been an empire on steroids.

But if you take the steroids away, it’s still an empire.

And Obama did not show a shred of recognition of that fact, or of the anti-democratic, anti-human-rights consequences that flow from it.

We all know he doesn’t want to be Bush Jr. But did you know he wants to be Bush Sr.?