here was a goosebump moment after all. In the midst of the political ritual and partisan rhetoric, Joe Lieberman stepped up to the moment and said, ''Only in America.''
He placed his journey on the American path of tolerance. A grandmother who left the bigotry of Europe to be greeted by Christian neighbors, ''Good Sabbath, Mrs. Manger.'' In-laws who were literally rescued by American G.I.s from genocidal Nazis. Time spent in Mississippi registering African-American voters. The senator really didn't need to remind viewers or delegates that he was the first Jewish American on a national ticket. It was enough to say: Only in America.
Forty years ago in Los Angeles, the Democrats who nominated JFK as president overlooked religion. But the Democrats nominating Joe Lieberman as vice president celebrated it.
For one long week, the Democrats touted their own diversity and taunted the Republicans. Rob Reiner mocked Republican diversity as ''two guys at the head of the ticket that are from two different oil companies.'' Democrats included and included and included. Still, there was a subtle undertone to the congratulations. The Democrats were placing a bet on Lieberman. He described a choice made ''with courage and friendship.'' One commentator after another said that breaking barriers entailed risk. Gore, they said, was both daring and open, as if being open-minded was itself the dare.
In one seminal moment, John Lewis, the civil rights leader quoted an old Yiddish line used by wary immigrants as a verbal crossing of the fingers. ''From your lips to God's ear,'' he said, ''America is ready for Joe Lieberman.''
''Ready'' is the word that stuck in my mind. Were we ''ready'' for Joe Lieberman? ''Ready'' for this first? In 1960, Harry Truman publicly directed this question with an equal lack of subtlety to JFK: ''Are you certain you're quite ready for the country or the country is ready for you?''
Ready or not? Why is it that no one ever asks whether we are ''ready'' for bigotry? It sounds as if there is a tolerance-readiness course that the country has to complete, like reading-readiness, before we can cross any new threshold.
In fact, one of the great chicken-and-egg questions of social change is how fast and far to move. If you push hard, will a backlash send you hurtling? Or will people catch up? If you choose gradual change, will it come more comfortably? Or not at all?
In the world of religion and politics, no one knows precisely what happened in the years between Al Smith's rejection and Jack Kennedy's election. Did time and the war mute the anti-Papism that once ran rampant? Or did JFK turn the tide for those who came next? Many of us remember that the South was not ''ready'' to integrate. Until it did. The military wasn't ''ready'' to accept women. Until it did. Television audiences weren't ''ready'' to accept homosexuals. Until they did.
When I was a kid in Boston, the marriage of an Irish Catholic to an Italian Catholic was an occasion for family mourning. Not today. I've known parents who would never accept a son-in-law of a different race or a daughter of a different sexual orientation. Now they do.
In these conventions, we saw diversity, ready or not. Were Dick and Lynne Cheney ''ready'' for a lesbian daughter? I doubt it. Would the McCains' grandparents have adopted a girl from Bangladesh? Would Prescott Bush's country club friends have embraced a nephew who shares Latino roots? Who would have expected Pat Buchanan to choose an African-American woman for his running mate, even one who believes multiculturalism has divided the country.
''Now the question is Joe Lieberman. There are Jewish Americans, older ones, who remember when neighbors did not always say, ''Good Sabbath, Mrs. Manger.'' Even young Americans who know how much has changed point to the messages on the Internet where new technology serves old bigotry.
But postwar generations have learned that you cannot wait until people, comfortable with their old narrow beliefs, become ready for change. It's those who step up, speak up, get out of the closet and do not quake at consequences who challenge old ideas with new realities. They change our world. So the bet is placed. On the platform the ''first'' said, ''We have become the America that so many of our parents dreamed for us.'' From his mouth to God's ear.
Ellen Goodman is a Globe columnist.
