Clinton II: I Want to Believe.

“Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work I’ve done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job. He has a remarkable ability to inspire people, to raise our hopes and rally us to high purpose. He has the intelligence and curiosity every successful president needs. His policies on the economy, taxes, health care and energy are far superior to the Republican alternatives. He has shown a clear grasp of our foreign policy and national security challenges, and a firm commitment to repair our badly strained military. His family heritage and life experiences have given him a unique capacity to lead our increasingly diverse nation and to restore our leadership in an ever more interdependent world. The long, hard primary tested and strengthened him. And in his first presidential decision, the selection of a running mate, he hit it out of the park.:

And with that, President Bill Clinton, in his impressive throwback performance tonight, helped to rectify the most egregious lacunae in his wife’s speech the night before. [Transcript.] In some ways, the former President’s speech exhibited a classic Clinton dynamic: His remarks had many of the same issues as those of Sen. Clinton — they were often relentlessly self-aggrandizing, for example — and yet, as with so many other things, he’s often just better at getting away with it. “Vote for Obama, because he’s the Second Coming of Me in 1992” is an argument that’s almost breathtaking in the audacity of its self-absorption, and yet Bill Clinton — when he’s on his game, as he was tonight — is remarkably good at making such egotism seem more like a magnanimous benediction, kindly bestowed on his Democratic successor. It’s a neat trick, no doubt…and when he goes after the GOP, few in our party do it better.

That being said, I thought even President Clinton’s unparallelled powers of salesmanship and seduction couldn’t sell me a line like “If, like me, you still believe America must always be a place called Hope, then join Hillary, Chelsea and me in making Sen. Barack Obama the next president of the United States.” Not when you spend even a moment remembering anything Clinton had to say about “false hopes” or “fairy tales” over the first six months of this year. But that’s watching the magician’s hands move, isn’t it?

(If It’s Wednesday,) We Roll Together.

“Madam Secretary, on behalf of the great state of New York, with appreciation for the spirit and dedication of all who are gathered here, with eyes firmly fixed on the future in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory, with faith in our party and our country, let’s declare together in one voice, right here, right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our president.”

In a choice bit of stagecraft that helped to partially salve the memory of her speech last night, Sen. Clinton shut down the official roll call and called for Barack Obama’s nomination by acclamation. In terms of a show of unity, I thought this was nicely done all around, and it went over like gangbusters on the floor. “Another Clinton advisor told me Wednesday morning that the negotiations that were being reported were never really that involved — basically, the roll-call vote was handled as Obama’s aides wanted.” If so, well-played.

Those Crazy Bloggers.

While I’m getting all the “look at me — I’m embedded!” links out of the way, here’s a Conde Nast Portfolio report on the Big Tent, filmed Monday, that features me briefly. Judging from the questions I keep getting asked, numerous mainstream media groups seem to be doing variations on this same sorta puff-piece story (“Who are these crazy “bloggers,” and (gasp) will they take over everything?), although — at least so far — I’ve spent most of my own interview-time talking to foreign press.

Also, whatever Drudge is currently saying about “Google massaging journalists,” they’re in fact massaging bloggers. Yes, there’s still a difference (and, no, I still haven’t partaken — big line.)

But she still has a crush on Obama.

Alright, put yourself in my shoes: You’re in Denver, occasionally surrounded by various poobahs of the political and DC-journalism worlds, and you already got as close to the candidate as you’re gonna get. Would you rush up to Mark Shields of The Capital Gang or National Journal‘s Ron Brownstein and beg for a pic? Would you brave the throngs of fellow blog-types and get all up in Joe Trippi’s grill? Or would you sidle over to the free-drinks area at an opportune time and snap this?

Sigh…yes, I am weak. At any rate, eat your heart out, Mike Gravel.

Clinton: He’s not me, but I guess he’ll have to do.

“To my supporters, to my champions — to my sisterhood of the traveling pant suits — from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you because you never gave in and you never gave up. And together we made history.” Have you ever heard Chris Rock’s stand-up riff about folks who want massive props from everyone for doing things they were supposed to do anyway? (“I take care of my kids! I’ve never been to jail!“) This, in a nutshell, was my impression of Sen. Clinton’s guilt-trip call to her remaining supporters last night, which — I doubt few will be surprised — I found mostly self-centered wallowing, and all in all a missed opportunity. [Transcript.] Following the address, the media were mostly sent into paroxysms of adulation for the Senator’s remarks, with my old employer leading the charge on CNN. I’m not sure we watched the same speech. OMG, she tepidly endorsed the winner of the Democratic nomination? She’s supposed to.

Now, if you’re here, you probably already know my feelings about Senator Clinton’s candidacy this past spring, how it went negative early in a fit of panic and poor planning, how it was distended beyond all proportion well after the fight was already over, how it appropriated GOP talking points for its own purposes and needlessly gave the McCain campaign all manner of soundbites (which it is now happily having the media play for them.) I just can’t take Sen. Clinton seriously as some tribune of the working class, particularly given she’s had someone waiting on her hand and foot since 1978, when she became First Lady of Arkansas. Nor do I buy into her recent “I’m Every Woman,” Shiva, Shatterer of Glass Ceilings routine: Even notwithstanding her behavior amid the various bimbo eruptions over the years, it was Sen. Clinton’s campaign who was the one trafficking in stale, sexist notions of “testicular fortitude” all the time. And it was she, among the candidates for president, who felt the dangerous need to dangle her phantom cajones by talking of “obliterating” Iran and/or Iraq. In all honesty, I think it’s safe to say that many of the suffragettes she’s now taken to invoking would blanche at her campaign’s behavior over the past year.

All that being said, now was the time for unity, yadda yadda yadda, so I went into Clinton’s speech with a relatively open mind. But then, true to form, she started talking about herself…again…and she just wouldn’t stop. The line people are keying into as some massively impressive act of self-abnegation is this: “I want you — I want you to ask yourselves, were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him?…Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?” Now, I know I’m not one of the um, hundreds, of Dems who are finding it so hard to get over Sen. Clinton’s inability to manage a campaign this past spring that I’ll vote for McCain as a result. But this, to me, is a grossly self-absorbed way of endorsing Barack Obama for president, one fully in keeping with what we’ve come to expect from the Senator from New York.

Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton said nothing to atone for her lamentable, injurious, and unnecessary commander-in-chief digs of a few months ago. She praised John McCain’s personality without saying much, if anything, nice about Barack Obama. Basically, the sum total of her argument last night was “Barack Obama is the lesser of two evils, and he almost’s as good as me, so get behind him.” Forgive me for not finding that much of a rousing call to unity.

Warner: Are you the Keymaster?

“My fellow Democrats. My fellow Americans. The most important contest of our generation has begun. Not the campaign for the presidency. Not the campaign for Congress. But the race for the future.” Well, one thing becomes clear about Gov. Mark Warner after his keynote speech last night [transcript]: he’s no Barack Obama. Granted, delivering the keynote four years after our current nominee would’ve been a tough gig by any measure. (And, hey, at least he was better than Clinton in ’88.) Still, I found Warner’s speech last night to be one of the more tepid and uninteresting of the evening. Brian Schweitzer was more wry, Kucinich’s fireplug “Wake Up America!” rally was more rousing, and Bob Casey was more devastating: (“McCain’s not a maverick, he’s a sidekick.”)

It doesn’t help that, at least to me, Warner has the air of a salesman and the look of a slightly deranged muppet (if not Guy Smiley, then one of the Avenue Q gang.) He also seems to have come off the same blow-dried assembly line that gave us Evan Bayh and John Edwards — the latter is company absolutely nobody seems to want to keep this week, even in resemblance — and that doesn’t help to dispel that certain feel of inauthenticity about him. And some of the riffs in his oration, especially early on, seemed particularly platitudinous. (The thing about the future is it comes, inexorably, whether you like or not.)

Now, don’t get me wrong — I’ll be casting my Senate vote for Warner this November, and I really hope the guy wins. His record in Virginia clearly suggests he’s a capable executive who can get things done. But I still found this keynote rather unremarkable, even if I found myself in great sympathy with its call for a return to science.

PUMA: Don’t Believe the Hype | Bill & Ed, Sssh.

Looking over the coverage from afar, it seems much is being made at Salon — naturally — of the PUMA crowd (particularly given that tonight is Clinton night.) Well, don’t believe a word of it. I happened to catch this exact same “protest” yesterday afternoon, and there couldn’t have been more than fifty people involved. Frankly, I’ve seen bigger protests by the third party and no party types than I have the stark raving Clintonites, and they don’t seem to be getting any coverage. As far as overt protests by the ex-Clintoners go, Salon, and related media outlets, are trying to make a mountain out of a very feeble-looking and tenuous molehill.

That being said, over in his corner Bill Clinton still seems to be keeping up with his protest of one. “Suppose you’re a voter, and you’ve got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don’t think that candidate can deliver on anything at all. Candidate Y you agree with on about half the issues, but he can deliver. Which candidate are you going to vote for?” Honestly, Mr. President, get a grip.

Update: Rendell’s off the reservation too. “Barack Obama is handsome. He’s incredibly bright. He’s incredibly well spoken, and he’s incredibly successful — not exactly the easiest guy in the world to identify with…He is a little like Adlai Stevenson.”

The Chameleon, Undercover.

For those looking for movie news amid the politics: While enjoying an outdoor microbrew last evening, I happened to notice Jeffrey Wright walking down the street, and — while political pundit types like Ron Brownstein were getting swamped by onlookers — it seemed exactly nobody else noticed him. (I would’ve snapped a pic, but the camera was out of juice.) I mean, c’mon people, that’s Colin Powell! Journalists and pols come and go, but I still get excited whenever I happen to see an honest-to-goodness movie star.

Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble.

“And in the end, after all that’s happened these past 19 months, the Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago. He’s the same man who drove me and our new baby daughter home from the hospital ten years ago this summer, inching along at a snail’s pace, peering anxiously at us in the rearview mirror, feeling the whole weight of her future in his hands, determined to give her everything he’d struggled so hard for himself, determined to give her what he never had: the affirming embrace of a father’s love.”

Next up, of course, was Michelle Obama, who delivered a personal testimonial for her husband and his belief in “the world as it should be.” [Transcript.] To be honest, I thought some of the beats in her speech — the necessary nod to Clinton, the “this is why I love my country” bit — were a tad too deliberate. That being said, Mrs. Obama was pretty much given a thankless chore in having to smooth her edges and homogenize herself for the easy-to-swallow consumption of “the undecideds” — It’s a weird rigamarole we put our political spouses through. So, with that in mind, I thought she did a great job.

Steady Teddy.

“My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here. And nothing going to keep me away from this special gathering.” In an emotional valedictory of sorts, Ted Kennedy kicked the major speeches off in grand fashion, brain tumor be damned. [Transcript.] “Yes, we are all Americans. This is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. And we can do it again. There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination — not merely victory for our Party, but renewal for our nation. And this November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.“

Now, that‘s a great introduction. However you feel about Sen. Kennedy, he undoubtedly stands like a liberal colossus over the straits of our times. In one of the darkest periods in our history to be a lefty, Sen. Kennedy has kept the flame alive, from the horrors of ’68 through Nixon, Reagan, 41, and Dubya. Given everything he and his family stand for, it’s hard to think of a better or more moving way to commemorate this week’s passing of the torch. Get well, Senator — We want you back in 2012.