Who is she? Who is the carefully groomed and scripted Debra Bartoshevich in McCain's new ad "Debra"?
Is she a lifelong Democrat, a Hillary backer who switched to McCain because Obama lacks "experience"? That is what she and her PUMA admirers claim. But the YouTube video at the top of this post, an unscripted interview with a local reporter, tells a far different story. What lifelong Democrat says, as she does repeatedly, "Democrat party"? And why was the McCain team already so poised to recruit her that she got a phone call from them "approximately three minutes" after Hillary Clinton's June 5 concession speech?
Her strange journey to center stage of McCain's Democrat-switcher campaign began long before that campaign gleefully leaked to reporters their coup in persuading one of Wisconsin's Hillary Clinton delegates to pledge publicly she would vote for John McCain. Read on below the fold!
From Kagro X, reporting from the Pepsi Center...convention goers watching Bill Clinton on TV. Remember, these folks are all about ten steps away from seeing it live. But rather than miss a word during the ten foot walk, they stayed glued to the screens.
Clinton did us proud. I've never heard him say so much in so little time.
I'm so proud of him and I think he reclaimed the respect he deserved and he finally brought out the issue that hadn't really been said by Obama. That the last time we had a democrat in the White House things got better fast.
Nearly everyone agrees Hillary Clinton gave the speech of her political life last night, magnanimously urging her diehard supporters to back Senator Obama for president. She emphasized what all democrats know: it is in their best interests and America's to see Barack Obama elected. As her reference to the Supreme Court suggests, a McCain presidency has negative long-term ramifications and will spiral America further downward.
Last night, Clinton earned figurative pats on the back for singing harmony. This is like praising the virtue of someone who kicked you in the head but was kind enough to give you an ice pack for the headache. Had it not been for Clinton's near-Rovian performance those last months of the primary, this disunity would be a background mumble rather than a ferocious roar reverberating daily in every media outlet.
Last night, following Hillary's wonderful speech, I wrote a diary with this very same title, noting that the one element that was unfortunately missing from Hillary's otherwise perfect speech was a full on endorsement of Obama's readiness and leadership ability.
Well, folks. Bill Clinton did it. And if this doesn't reassure Democrats, then nothing will. Bill and Hillary delivered a one-two punch. Hillary set the stage. She urged her supporters to reject John McCain and support the party. Bill followed up by showing us why Obama is the one who needs to be President.
I'm not sure to what extent this was the plan. I suspect it was all along. Hillary and Bill would work together to reunite the party. And what an incredible job they did.
I think the most interesting thing about these last to nights is how effectively the Clintons united this party. Now, I think a lot of us Obama supporters were thinking, "boy, the Clintons really need to fix what they broke."
He had me spitting nails all primary season, but his work tonight at the convention was vintage Bill. He was gracious, poignant and strategic. He hit the experience/commander in chief issue head on; he wrapped a bouquet around the perfect union of Obama and Biden; and he put another huge helping of medicine on the wound with Hillary's disaffected supporters. Great performance, great message, great for Obama
Alright I'm going to keep updating based on coverage for those of you who are watching CSPAN due to shitty pundits, but Bill just unequivocally stated that McCain blows monkey nuts, and Obama is oh so ready to be Commander in Chief. More to come. Not a Diary yet, but I wanted to get this in quickly.
This has to go up here too because it pissed me off so much:
Update 5 or 6: Bullshit, Tom Brokaw just played McCain's POW card for him. You have got to be kidding me.
I started commenting on the glory of Bill Clinton's speech on my blog, http://heartlessandbrainless.blogspo... but I decided to share it here too. Come express your appreciation of Bills speech under the fold!
The Big Dog is up. Prepare for media tears as Bill Clinton endorses Barack Obama. Says Bill:
I am honored to be here tonight...[crowd going nuts]...I am here, first to support Barack Obama and second I'm here to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden.
Speaking for myself, I think by now we've had plenty of happy talk at the Democratic National Convention. The American public is not in a good mood; it thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction; and it's fed up to HERE with dysfunctional and corrupt government. Americans probably can tolerate only so much uplift coming from any group of politicians.
No, convention speakers needn't bother to tell us that George Bush has been a godawful president. Everybody gets that who's been awake during any of the last 8 years.
What our friends at the DNC might want to explain, in these few days when they've got our attention, is why the current Republican philosophy of governance led to this mess. There are plenty of Americans who have never given it much thought – why a political party that is hostile to government inevitably undermines good government; why a party that seeks at every turn to privatize government can have no clear idea how to govern; why a party that turns instinctively to divisiveness cannot fail to injure a commonwealth; why a party that hands government over to the powerful to despoil can never be trusted to help the rest of us. They might even want to show the public how John McCain has taken part in the Republican train wreck during the last 8 years.
There are plenty of Americans, too, who don't really know much about John McCain's temperament – his fits of anger, his impulsiveness, his bellicosity, his mendacity. Some don't realize how profoundly ignorant and misinformed John McCain is about foreign affairs and about domestic issues. Many of the public may be only vaguely aware of how privileged a life John McCain has led, or how out of touch he is from ordinary Americans' experiences. A fair number of people "know" the myth the news media have peddled for years about John McCain, and little else.
You might want to remedy that by giving us less uplift and more actual straight talk about what the next 4 years would hold under Republican governance. Now would be a good time to do that.
This is IMHO more powerful than her speech could have ever been. Actions speak much louder than words. Everybody (including myself) who said that Hillary was out for herself, and wants Obama to lose so she can run in 2012 should eat their words. This was just absolutely beautiful, thank you Hillary!
