HISTORIC IRONY: Looking back at Obama’s 2004 nominating speech. “Reading it now I could almost weep, because it is so deceptive, so unlike the Barack Obama we’ve come to know so well. If the guy portrayed in that speech had won an election, the result probably wouldn’t have been half bad. But that guy never existed; he was an actor reading his lines. 2004 was his first performance on the national stage, and he ought to have won an Oscar for it.” To be fair, he did get a Nobel Peace Prize.