In Denver
Posted on August 28, 2008
I got to Denver yesterday, in time for day three of the coronation of Hillary Clinton, er, I mean, Bill Clinton, er I mean Barack Obama.
I was able to get my way to MSNBC to do a show with Norah O’Donnell, but before I went on the show, I heard that Barack the great is erecting a Greek Temple from which to speak. The MSNBC show was live in front of a fairly partisan audience, and every time I opened my mouth about the insanity of that image, I was heartily booed.
All’s fair in love and politics.
I then went to my hotel, the Days Inn somewhere in a not very nice place. I know that because my cabdriver said it was in the worst part of town. Alas, that is the price for making your plans late to go to a convention, any convention.
Through some good luck and good friends, I was able to get a credential to the outside perimeter, and then a credential to get to the hall and then to the floor. I didn’t actually go to the floor, but it was nice knowing that I had that opportunity.
It was from bowels of the convention center that I had a chance to listen to Bill Clinton. It was a good speech, from the Democratic perspective. It had all the elements. Class warfare, condemnation of President Bush, and of course, a veneration of Bill Clinton.
Clinton’s central argument is that if you elect Barack Obama, you will get a newer version of Bill Clinton. And with Bill Clinton, you get prosperity, peace and a nice sex scandal.
Well, no, Clinton didn’t talk about the sex scandal. He also failed to mention his first two disastrous years as President, the dominance of the Republican Congress on domestic issues for the last six years of his Presidency, his negligence of the intelligence budget, which led to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In fact, Clinton didn’t once mention 9/11, the most vicious attack on our nation’s soil in history. Nope, to Clinton (and Obama and most Democrats, it seems) the September 11th attacks never happened.
They seem to blame President Bush for the fact we are in a war with Islamic extremists, but if you recall, it wasn’t his fault. But I digress.
Joe Biden’s speech was good when he talked about his family, not so good when he talked about John McCain. Biden conveniently forget that he and Obama were wrong on the surge, that Obama advocated that we lose in Iraq, and that Vladimir Putin is not the kind of guy that admires weakness in foreign policy. Putin won’t talk it out, in other words.
That being said, the Democrats had a pretty good night last night. They needed Clinton to say what he did, they needed Biden to get his speech in under 30 minutes, which he did, and they had a nice little surprise (unless you were with the media who knew it at the beginning of the night, it seemed) with Obama coming on stage with Biden.
Tonight, it is all about football fields and Doric Columns. Football is the modern equivalent of the ancient gladiator game, and Doric columns (under which Obama is supposed to talk tonight) evoke the Roman empire.
First Barack Obama announced that he was running for President of the United States. Then, he went to Berlin and seemingly implied that he was running for President of Europe. Is tonight a sign that he is actually planning on becoming a Modern Caesar.
Hail Caesar! Hail Barack! Let me get the hell out of this Days Inn!