Legal Commentary

Hillary at the DNC

By Beldar

I wasn't able to watch last night's live coverage of the Democratic National Convention, but I watched replays in the wee small hours. I was fascinated by the reports that the Obama campaign juggled former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, the supposed "key-note speaker," into an earlier time slot with fewer TV viewers because he was refusing to deliver up enough anti-McCain red meat. If true, that's hardly a vote of confidence on his part as to the outcome of this year's presidential election; or perhaps it just reflects nervousness on his part about how his future home-state prospects might be affected; or perhaps he really, truly is principled.

As for Hillary: Especially combined with the extremely short introduction from daughter Chelsea, and a short but funny video introduction (which spoofed her laugh and terrible singing), her speech last night was the most effective public performance I've ever seen Hillary Clinton make. But as various pundits noted afterwards, it was an effective performance on behalf of Hillary Clinton ? and not so much on behalf of Barack Obama.

Oh, it was superficially supportive enough, with a sufficient number of rote exhortations that "We've got to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States!" But there was no fire in those exhortations, no passion. They were wooden, whereas the rest of her speech ? talking about what she had experienced in the campaign, what she thinks, what she believes ? almost sounded genuine. There is no question that she became a vastly more skilled campaigner during the course of the past year, and whenever she is next free to run, whether it's 2012 or 2016, she's going to be hell on wheels for any other Democratic contender.

Obama is an utter fool not to have bent over backwards to get her campaign debt paid off and lavished her with at least faux respect ever since he clinched the nomination. It is certainly clear that hubris is his fatal flaw, every bit as much as lust is Bubba's fatal flaw.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on August 27, 2008 (boomark / email).