It is pretty tough to excel in a judgment-rated endeavor when you're expected to excel, and that's the situation Barack Obama was in last night — the foundation of all that has grown up in the past four years around him was his keynote speech at the Boston convention.

Even against such high expectation, I thought Obama gave a very good speech last night.

I loved when he said that the election was not about him, but about us. Damn right.

I appreciated his talking about the manipulativeness of the Republicans, who make big elections about small things when they have no new ideas. His comment that offshore drilling is a stop-gap, not a long-term solution, not even close, was in the same vein and I was grateful

He had great flourishes, such as, McCain says he'll follow him to the gates of hell, but he won't follow him to the cave he's been living in. And, if John McCain wants to debate me on who has the judgment and temperament to be commander in chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have. (I'm paraphrasing, from memory.)

I thought he was direct, clear, and both controlled and passionate. It was a good speech, and he gave it well.

However.

One of his first big applause lines was when he pledged to get us off imported oil from the Middle East in 10 years. Just what does that mean? Is it even possible, in the world oil economy, to specify where the oil comes from? Aren't purchases made by private parties, not the government? Does he intend to buy only from non-threatening, freedom-loving oil producers like Russia, and Venezuela? Probably not, but just what does he mean?

And there were two other clunkers in there, his endorsement of clean coal (no such thing, so far) and his pledge to find nuclear that's safe (ditto).

I know that there are states that depend on coal, so there's a political motivation to toss that sop, but who but big business — and even then, only the businesses who sell nuclear-plant technology — is going to be swayed by that?

I concede that I have wavered, just a little bit, on nuclear, as a potential transition to a renewable-energy economy. The way I see it, we would trade the poison we put into the atmosphere — a clear and present danger — for the poison we would put into the ground, a never-ending danger. Nuclear also brings, of course, the potential for meltdown and for accidents during transportation of wastes. Beyond conceding that they both suck, can we really pick one as less sucky?

So far, there's at least a case for wavering. But then there are the economics. As I understand it, no nuclear plant has ever been built without substantial government assistance. That means each of us has paid to help nuclear plants be built. Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?

We will undoubtedly need to continue investing tax dollars, one way or another, in our energy future. No matter what small-governmentalist conservatives might say, we have a communal interest in the outcome, and it would be follow just to let the ruthless market choose the outcome. We have to invest and to invest wisely.

If we throw tens of billions toward nuclear — say, for a couple dozen new plants, if that would be enough — that's tens of billions we won't throw toward solar, wind, wave, and whatever else will be "free" and nonpolluting once it's built. Once those nukes are built, they will be our investment for the next few decades, as entrenched by then as oil and gas are now. If we're going to go in a new direction, let's rush hellbent toward the good ones, instead of detouring from one dumping ground to another.

There was a time when such stances would be the kiss-off for me, but I'm still with Obama. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to an intern-age San Diegan at Boston Green Drinks (I can hook you up, if you're interested) and he said he was thinking of withholding his vote from Obama because of his FISA and drilling reversals. I had sympathy for the position — I voted for John Anderson in '80, and I voted for Nader in '00; my position has long been, you don't vote for the better winnable candidate, you vote for whom you want to win.

But the reply that came out of me was that this is a race between two people, and that one of them is going to win. I don't think anyone in our lifetime will ever again be able to think that voting for president doesn't matter, not after the uncountable debacles of Still-President Bush. Voting matters, and whom we choose matters.

So even if Obama put nukes and "clean" coal into the biggest speech of his life, he's still the one.