The first thing that jumps out from Biden's speech is that the tone seems to appeal to the Jacksonians in the Jacksonian / Academic divide that Michael Barone explored during the primaries. He talks about "honor" and fighting and bloodying the nose of neighborhood bullies and the bearing of crosses.

This is not the type of imagery that Obama has been comfortable trading in.

John Kerry contrasted John McCain's bellicose reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia with Barack Obama's "statesmanlike" response. Recall Obama's first statement about the invasion: "Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war."

As John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann aptly observed: “That's kind of like saying after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, that Kuwait and Iraq need to show restraint, or like saying in 1968 [when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia] ... that the Czechoslovaks should show restraint".

President Clinton seems willing to put his arms around Obama in a way Hillary wasn't. He actually does say that Obama is ready to be president and defender of the Constitution (though not, interestingly, commander-in-chief). And he mounts a short defense of Obama by saying that in 1992 he, too, was charged with not being experienced enough for the job.

But still. It remains true that nothing either of the Clintons said about Obama wouldn't be equally applicable to any other nominee. The only Obama-specific recommendation President Clinton makes is that "His family heritage and life experience have given him a unique capacity to lead our increasingly diverse nation and restore our leadership in an ever more interdependent world."

One other note: Earlier the Democrats wheeled out Michele S. Jones, who gave the angriest speech of the convention. In addition to the tone being somewhat off-putting, Jones included this strange line: "America’s service men and women need a president and a commander-in-chief with the courage to serve, the gift to lead and the ability to get things done." She's not exactly pointing to Obama's strengths.

In anticipation of Joe Biden's introduction to the millions of Joe Sixpacks he's supposed to appeal to, I can't resist posting Biden's "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you" video:

While the Dems are abuzz with their new anti-Bush/McCain "four more months" catchphrase, courtesy of Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey, they seem to have forgotten to take a look at the calendar. Inauguration day, December 26, 2008? Not quite. Nonetheless, not once but twice, Casey demanded "Not four more years. Four more months." The Democratic ticket is all about the "future," but that future is not coming as soon as they would like us to believe.

During his remarks, Harry Reid called offshore drilling "snake oil and quackery" and said that "Doc McCain’s magic offshore oil elixir won’t work." Reid went on to every so subtly bring up McCain's age by calling him "kindly old Doc McCain."

Reid also argued: "Senator McCain and the Republicans have centered their answer to our vital energy needs on one solution: offshore drilling." But of course McCain's energy plan offers more solutions than just off-shore drilling, such as more nuclear power. Will Jonathan Chait denounce this scurrilous lie?

I sure hope not. Every time Reid brings up the Democrats' obstructionism on offshore drilling, McCain wins.

Denver
During that Democrats for Life meeting today, held at the Monaco Hotel not far from the Pepsi Center, some of the speakers criticized an ostensibly pro-life Republican Party for failing to make serious progress on a pro-life agenda. One criticism in particular was that despite the fact that Republican presidents have appointed all but two of the last nine Justices, the Supreme Court still hasn’t overruled Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision in which the Court declared a constitutional right to abortion.

Three thoughts:

First, Democratic congressman Lincoln Davis, one of the speakers who made this argument, failed to distinguish between (1) an overruling of Roe, which would restore to the people the authority to decide abortion policy, and (2) what that policy should be. After all, you can regard Roe as awful constitutional law (if even constitutional law) and still be for the abortion right as a matter of policy. Of course, pro-choicers would regard an overruling of Roe as a huge setback, since what the Court handed them in Roe would now have to be won again through the ordinary political process. From that perspective, an overruling of Roe could be said to be pro-life, but only in the sense that a loss for us is a win for them.

Second, if Davis truly laments the Court’s failure to strike down Roe, he can blame the pro-choicers who dominated his own party in 1987 when a Senate Democratic majority blocked the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. No one right or left doubts that had Bork been confirmed, and thus his eventual replacement Anthony Kennedy not nominated and confirmed, Roe would have been overruled, probably in one of the series of abortion cases in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which the Court was explicitly asked to overrule Roe.

Third, the Senate Democrats’ general in the Bork confirmation battle was none other than Joe Biden. Wonder what the pro-life Davis thinks of Biden’s role in that historic showdown. Biden, by the way, flip-flopped on Bork, changing his mind little more than a week after the judge was nominated, thanks to the anguished importuning of liberal interest groups.

A Hill aide points out this Seattle Times article, which reports that Democratic congressman Brian Baird is still a pariah in his own party for deciding to back the surge last August:

Brian Baird was lonely enough back when all his Democratic friends thought he was wrong.

But now that it appears he was right — that the Iraq war was going better, as he claimed, and President Bush's troop surge was working — the Southwest Washington congressman is even more of an outcast.

Now nobody much wants to talk to him about Iraq at all.

"After all that extraordinary outrage directed at me, not one person has called me up and said 'Hey, Brian, it looks like you might have had a point after all,' " said Baird, in Denver for his party's national convention this week.

"We say Bush is so blinded by ideology that he ignores the facts in the real world, and that's true," Baird said. "Aren't we doing the same thing? We're being just like Bush."

Baird touched off a furor last August when he effectively switched from the anti-war side by coming out in support of the troop buildup, which Democrats almost universally were trying to block.

I went down to Vancouver last summer to see Baird explain himself to his angry constituents. It was, I wrote, "one of the most severe tongue-lashings I've ever seen administered to a public official, at least face to face."

Six hundred people — from veterans to teachers, from a Columbia River boat captain to a lady who plays bagpipes at soldier funerals — spent nearly four hours calling Baird a sellout, Bush's lap dog, a neocon pet. Some told him to resign.

For all the grief he's taken, it's surprising that Baird is offering sound advice to his colleagues:

"We ought to just say that it worked. People were understandably skeptical of the administration at the time. But we have to acknowledge reality. Do you stay with a political position because it's popular even if it doesn't square with the facts?"

Baird's view is that if "the people in our party advocating for an immediate withdrawal of troops last year had gotten their way, it would have been disastrous for the U.S."

The McCain campaign has some wardrobe recommendations for those of us going to Invesco Field tomorrow.

Denver
After visiting the Manifest Hope gallery, I did a dispatch with tons of pictures of the new Obama iconography. Some of it has to be seen to be believed.

I was so moved by the change and the hope, that I dropped $20 on an Obama T-shirt:

As you can see, this is more of an Old Testament Obama, watching over His people in stern judgment.

Charles Krauthammer and others have noted the odd grandiosity of Obama's creation of a miniature Greek temple for the backdrop of his acceptance speech tomorrow.

But it seems to me that what Obama is likely trying to do is not suggest an Olympian setting, but rather to invoke the Lincoln Memorial, putting himself in MLK's place since we're marking the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream Speech."

This would be perfectly in keeping with Obama's modus operandi, which is to consistently invoke the words or symbols of other leaders instead of creating his own.

Here's Dave Barry on Joe Biden:

"The transformation of Joe Biden is one of the best story lines at this convention. A week ago, people would sprint from the room when Joe entered for fear he would start a sentence that might not end until Halloween. Now, suddenly, he is a towering stud muffin of charisma. His every move is big news. On Tuesday, the Rocky Mountain News ran a story headlined 'Would-be veep eats at Boney's.' It stated that Joe went to a Denver restaurant called Boney's Barbecue, which had been alerted in advance by the Secret Service (I am not making this up) to have smoked turkey legs ready. However, when Joe got there, he went with the pulled-pork sandwich. He's for Change!"

Seen in a storefront window close to the Pepsi Center: “Liberal Markdowns: 50 to 70% Off.” Ah, something liberal in this Democratic week that you have to like.

Denver
Georgian Ambassador Vasil Sikharuldize is one of the busiest men at the Democratic National Convention, hopping from meeting to meeting to seek American aid for his embattled country. When I caught up with him Monday night, he told me that the need for $1 billion in economic assistance from the United States—to help rebuild both Georgia’s civilian and military infrastructure—has been a focus of his talks with Democratic leaders, such as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice.

“What we’re talking about are strictly defensive capabilities,” he said, arguing that it would be “unimaginable” that Georgia’s small military would confront Russia. “We need new radars, new air fields, new military bases.”

Though Sikharuldize said the sale of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons from the U.S. to Georgia was not a measure currently being discussed, he told me: “We believe as a matter of deterrence this kind of equipment may be very helpful for us.” The ambassador also believes that “security cooperation,” including “frequent visits of U.S. officials to train Georgians,” is of the utmost importance, whether conducted “bilaterally or through NATO.”

Amb. Sikharuldize said that Russia’s belligerence demonstrates why Georgia ought to be admitted to NATO. He argued that the NATO's Article 5—which states an attack on one member country shall be considered an attack against all—would “serve as a deterrent.” As we discussed how the recent conflict may complicate Georgia’s bid for NATO membership, Sikharuldize said: “We will not enter NATO with any deal that treats South Ossetia or Abkhazia as special areas”—meaning that those areas should be viewed “as full parts of Georgia as any other part of Georgia.” In other words, an invasion of South Ossetia or Abkhazia would require a response by NATO members under Article 5, which would, the ambassador argues, deter a future attack.

Minneapolis
While Democrats prepare for night three in Denver, Republicans kicked off their pre-convention week in Minnesota yesterday. And with the recent polling and the media spending the first half of the Democratic convention debating whether Obama can win over Clinton supporters, the activists and delegates here are increasingly enthusiastic.

The convention will take place at the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul. Construction workers are busy transforming the sports/concert venue into a political convention hall. The floor of the Xcel Center--home of the Minnesota Wild hockey team--is a sea of new, red industrial carpet covering the ice rink. Workers are assembling chairs, building a podium, and running miles of cable. It looks like Extreme Home Makeover-Political Edition.

About 10 miles west, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, Republican delegates and party officials will finish drafting the GOP platform today. I sat through the deliberations yesterday and today and had a chance to talk to some of the participants.

The platform is being billed as the most grassroots-driven document in convention history, receiving over 10,000 ideas and comments through the first-ever online input process. But despite the contributions, the document is only about half the length of the 2004 platform. It’s divided into six major themes: 1. Economy, 2. National Security, 3. Spending and Government Reform, 4. Energy and the Environment, 5. Crime and American Values, and 6. Healthcare and Education. While the drafting and amending process has been rather smooth, delegates did conduct spirited debate over immigration, stem cell research, and global climate change. All of these issues, however, were resolved to the satisfaction of those involved, including the McCain campaign. There will be no minority reports or substitutes offered on the floor next week.

A convention veteran told me this: “The McCain campaign did a very smart thing. They let the delegates work their will and didn’t try to impose a heavy hand and just say no to every little change in the platform. The document will be something the party and the candidate can strongly support.”

The lack of platform fireworks is a welcome development.

"I’ve been to every convention since 1980,” a seasoned former congressional aide told me. “There have been many times where delegates caused a lot of trouble and it looked like the party was divided. This time they feel we can win--despite all the negatives--and we’re very unified. That’s why this platform process is moving ahead so smoothly.”

Another platform staffer said, "The parliamentarian seems really bored. We like it that way."

That's the claim that author Derek Chollet makes in this blog-post. A friend of mine isn't convinced. He writes:

"Chollet tries to argue that an Obama administration will follow the same centrist foreign policy that President Clinton pursued in his second term, which he characterizes as resting on three pillars: 'Embracing globalization and trade; promoting democracy; and developing a concept on the use of force that turned the usual liberal debate about using military power on its head - instead of the burden of proof falling on those advocating intervention, the burden fell on those who advocated doing nothing in the face of aggression (as we saw in the Balkans). By the late 1990s, and still today, these ideas framed the mainstream of Democratic foreign policy.'

"Although this is a fair characterization of the way the Clinton administration saw the world in the late 1990s, it bears little resemblance to where the Democratic party is today – which has drifted pretty far left over the past eight years under the influence of Moveon.org.

"First, with regard to trade, Chollet acknowledges that Obama and Biden 'have criticized some of the specifics of trade agreements, but have been steadfast defenders of an open global economy.'

"Let’s reflect on this for a moment. Obama has promised to renegotiate NAFTA, calling it a 'bad deal.' He has opposed every significant trade agreement that has come before Congress since he was elected to national office, including trade deals with key U.S. allies like Colombia and South Korea. To say that Obama has 'criticized some of the specifics of trade agreements' but is otherwise a 'steadfast defender of an open global economy' is like claiming that, other than his 36 years in the US Senate, Joe Biden is a fresh face in American politics. It’s absurd.

"Chollet’s next point point: 'Although strong critics of the Iraq war, Obama and Biden are hardly doves - they have called for doing more to end the genocide in Darfur and have advocated the use of force to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.'

"Seriously? The new litmus test for foreign policy toughness is ... a willingness to use force to kill Obama bin Laden? And 'doing more' about Darfur? "More" of what, exactly?

"And the final kicker: 'And [Obama and Biden] have made clear that they believe the U.S. must remain a steadfast defender of democracy around the world - as their response to the Georgia crisis demonstrates.'

"Perhaps Derek wasn’t paying attention, but Obama’s initial response to the Georgia crisis was to apportion blame equally between Russia and Georgia. It was explicitly not to draw a distinction between an authoritarian aggressor and a fellow democracy that was being victimized.

"I feel genuine sympathy for Chollet and his kin – hawkish foreign policy Democrats who have been hiding out at think tanks for the past couple years, eagerly awaiting their return to executive power, whereupon they hope to sweep left wing nuttiness from the party. Alas for them, the netroots aren’t going anywhere – and by all accounts, the presidential candidate they are about to nominate is closer in foreign policy instincts and temperament to the Daily Kos bloggers than he is to the liberal internationalists at the Center for a New American Security and the Brookings Institution."

For what it's worth, I am more favorably inclined to Chollet's interpretation than my friend - the realities of a dangerous world will likely lead President Obama to embrace the use of force and intervene abroad more frequently than his supporters believe (and hope). But it is also true, as my friend points out, that Obama's initial response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, and his passionate willingness to negotiate with dictators around the globe, suggest that his instincts are closer to MoveOn than Brookings.

At its midpoint, it looks increasingly like the 2008 Democratic National Convention will be seen as a strategic failure. Michelle Obama's speech and the appearance of the Obama daughters worked well, but that was quickly overtaken by Hillary Clinton's launch of her 2012 presidential candidacy. And tonight Bill Clinton will dominate the network broadcasts and commentary, overshadowing vice presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Americans watching the Democratic National Convention have seen and heard relatively little of the Democratic candidate for president. Instead, they are watching another chapter of their favorite political drama - The Clintons - unfold before them. Meanwhile, the nationally televised speeches have had few direct assaults on John McCain and President Bush - fewer, at least, than one would have expected. And with the unveiling of his own Greek temple at Invesco Field, Obama will play into the McCain campaign's "celebrity" critique.

Obama's nominating speech will be a historic occasion that will no doubt receive plaudits from the press, deserved or not. It will be a moment to remember. So many other moments during this convention seem like wasted opportunities.

Denver
It sounds like a joke: How many pro-life Democrats can you fit in a room? All of them! This afternoon, about 60 people gathered for a town-hall meeting of pro-life Democrats. Of this group, about eight were speakers and another dozen (at least) were media. Maybe the joke is right.

That said, the pro-life Democrat caucus is admirable, in its own way. Rep. Heath Shuler (who will run for national office some day, count on it) gave a pretty impressive accounting for life issues, not only attacking abortion, but making a point of noting that life spans from conception to natural death.

The most impressive of the pro-life Dems, however, was Rep. Lincoln Davis. Like the other pro-life Dems, Davis didn't talk much about Roe v. Wade (except, oddly enough, to blame Republican appointees on the Supreme Court for not overturning it). The pro-life Democratic position is now centered around reducing the number of abortions, with questions of law to follow at some later date.

And to this end, Davis hauled out a very interesting bit of data: In 1973, the year of Roe, 9 percent of pregnancies to unmarried women resulted in voluntary adoptions. By 2000, that number had collapsed to 1 percent, with abortion taking the hindmost. Davis and the other Democrats see the active promotion of adoption as a workable, immediate pathway to reducing abortion.

It's a good place to start.

Denver
Following a panel hosted by Democrats for Life of America, I asked Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey Jr. if he would filibuster any bill that would provide taxpayer funding for abortions through Medicaid or insurance coverage of abortion through a national health care plan--measures that Barack Obama has said he will enact as president. Casey replied that he and Obama "obviously disagree" on taxpayer funding of abortion, but he declined to say if he would support a filibuster: "I'm not going to make prognostications about legislative strategies on this or any other issue."

Democrats have been trying to reach out to pro-life voters by arguing that as president Barack Obama would do more than John McCain to reduce the abortion rate by funding government programs to prevent unintended pregnancies and support pregnant women. But taxpayer funding would likely do much more to increase the number of abortions than these programs would reduce them.

Following the November elections, in all likelihood, the only way to prevent abortion-funding legislation from passing the Senate would be a filibuster that has the support of pro-life Democratic senators like Bob Casey Jr. and Harry Reid. Casey's refusal to state his position on such a filibuster should be of great concern for anyone committed to reducing the number of abortions.

Mark Leibovich asked delegates to the convention: Who would be greeted with "more contempt"? Joe Lieberman or John Edwards?

"'Lieberman, definitely,' said Lola Hopper, a delegate from Texas. 'If he showed his face, he’d have to leave town in the back of a trunk.'"

His quick take: "What's the finish? Maybe Obama’s got Zhang Yimou to do the hidden-rope trick, and have him lifted, Beijing-style, to the heavens when he’s done. Will he reappear three days later at the Bird’s Nest?"

After all, he is a citizen of the world.

When John Kerry tabbed John Edwards as his running mate in 2004, certain members of the pundit class swooned. They figured Edwards’ immense political skills would dramatically bolster Kerry’s chances. Me, I was perplexed. If John Edwards was in fact such a magnificent political talent, how come he had just lost a race to John Kerry? As law school lecturers like Barack Obama like to say, “Res ipsa loquitur.” Unsurprisingly, Edwards went on to serve as a lackluster running mate. If you don’t believe me on that score, I encourage you to check out Bob Shrum’s catty, tell-all memoir.

Now it’s Joe Biden’s skills that are being unjustly lionized by the gullible among us. The Politico reports:

Democrat Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as a running mate is complicating Republican John McCain’s analysis of his prospective vice presidential contenders.

Biden will make his formal debut Wednesday with a primetime address. McCain is expected to announce his pick after Obama accepts his nomination here on Thursday.

Some insiders are pressing McCain to make a strategic selection, one that beefs up his economic strength, enhances his chance to grab a state or amps up the partisan firepower.

“McCain knows Biden well. He knows how good he is as a knife fighter. He’ll take McCain apart,” said one Republican operative.

But a review of the much-rumored McCain shortlist clearly exposes the weaknesses each person on it might bring if matched up against the six-term senator from Delaware.

If Biden is such a gifted political knife fighter, how come he got less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, a result that chased him from the race? True, he did better than Dennis Kucinich, but has that become our gold standard for campaigning excellence?

Biden is a lackluster choice because he is a lackluster politician. His defenders will of course point to his 36 years in the senate as a selling point, but what good is experience if it doesn’t beget insight? Biden’s plan for partitioning Iraq remains the single most cockamamie contribution to the Iraq war debate over the past five years. And that’s no small accomplishment.

But please – no one in the media should allow my negativity to alter their narrative of Biden as a political Ubermensch. America should expect a veritable Cicero when the garrulous gaffe machine takes the stage tonight. And woe to the poor Republican who has to debate this formidable figure with the nation watching this Fall.

Montana governor Brian Schweitzer's speech to the Democratic convention last night brought the crowd to its feet. Schweitzer's performance was excellent. He bobbed and weaved, stretched words like taffy, and had the audience hanging on his every word. There's a problem, however. It's this line: "Barack Obama understands the most important barrel of oil is the one you don’t use."

Anti-carbon activists may not like it, but the fact is the global economy runs on fossil fuels. It will be a long, long time before those fuels are replaced by alternative energy, government subsidies notwithstanding. Using fewer barrels of oil requires constraining human behavior. This is not a winning message for the Democratic party.

Jay Cost on night two: Obama "is the nominee. He could have given Hillary the vice-presidential nomination. Choosing her would have totally changed the convention for the better. But Obama didn't choose her. He tapped Joe Biden instead. As a consequence, he's lost control of his own convention."

Read the whole thing, as they say.

From the New York Times, “High Anxiety in the Mile High City” by Maureen Dowd

On the occasions when Maureen Dowd is good (which admittedly are rare), her work officially rises to the level of “guilty pleasure.” So smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, because here comes MoDo at her best:

I’ve been to a lot of conventions, and there’s always something gratifyingly weird that happens.

Dan Quayle acting like a Dancing Hamster. Teresa Heinz Kerry reprising Blanche DuBois. Dick Morris getting nabbed triangulating between a hooker and toes.

But this Democratic convention has a vibe so weird and jittery, so at odds with the early thrilling, fairy dust feel of the Obama revolution, that I had to consult Mike Murphy, the peppery Republican strategist and former McCain guru.

“What is that feeling in the air?” I asked him.

“Submerged hate,” he promptly replied…

(Hillary) offered the electrifying fight that the limpid Obama has not — setting off paranoia among some Democrats that they had chosen the wrong nominee or that Obama had chosen the wrong running mate. “It makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together in the Twin Cities because these days they are awfully hard to tell apart,” she said.

Afterward, some of her supporters began crying, as they were interviewed by reporters, saying that her speech had proved that she would make a better president than Obama. And, as one said, she would only give him “two months” to prove himself.

One video that’s been receiving much play lately is Suzanne Malveaux’s CNN interview of an upset Clinton supporter following the former first lady’s speech last night. Not to get all Ghost Hunters about it, but did anyone else wonder what happened at the tail-end of that interview? The distraught woman ends her thought (about Obama’s résumé) around the four-minute mark and in the background you hear a man’s voice say, “Let’s go.” As the camera pans out, behind Malveaux is a man in a blue shirt who then talks to the supporter with very firm hand gestures. Could he be one of the Obama whips we’ve all been hearing about? (Or a fellow delegate just hungry for dinner?)

Jonathan Martin, who looked dashing in his pink oxford at the Politico party last evening, reports that John McCain told supporters in San Diego that he intends to compete in California. Several of the supporters I spoke to in Beverly Hills on Monday said that McCain promised them the same thing. And virtually every single one thought it was A) very unlikely, and B) very foolish if true.

Republican presidential candidates say this kind of thing every four years, of course, and rarely follow through. Martin is right when he says that "compete" can be interpreted broadly.

This excellent essay and the film snippet above provides insight into Obama buddy William Ayers, while casting doubt on the candidate’s typically sly evasion of his moral responsibility for hanging around with such a cretin.

During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in early 1970. I was only nine then, the year Ayers’s Weathermen tried to murder me.

In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night…

Though never a supporter of Obama, I admired him for a time for his ability to engage our imaginations, and especially for his ability to inspire the young once again to embrace the political system. Yet his myopia in the last few months has cast a new light on his “politics of change.” Nobody should hold the junior senator from Illinois responsible for his friends’ and supporters’ violent terrorist acts. But it is fair to hold him responsible for a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates, and friends, and for showing a callous disregard for the lives they damaged and the hatred they have demonstrated for this country. It is fair, too, to ask what those choices say about Obama’s own beliefs, his philosophy, and the direction he would take our nation.

Personally, I don’t think Obama’s association with William Ayers says anything about where he wants to take the nation. There’s no reason to infer that Obama sympathizes with the Weathermen’s agenda, and to suggest otherwise is more than a touch overwrought. Then again, given the attempt on his family’s lives, Murtaugh is entitled to being more than a touch overwrought. The Obama/Ayers relationship does, however, say a great deal about how Barack Obama is a conventional thinker and actor who thoroughly and meekly reflects the values of his environment.

In the Wall Street Journal today, Dan Gerstein has a phenomenally obtuse op-ed positing that Obama is “an independent-minded, orthodoxy-challenging, gutsy leader.” The orthodoxy in Obama’s Hyde Park neighborhood was to embrace the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers. Now let’s say there was an aspiring politician in the neighborhood who was a truly "independent-minded" and gutsy leader with proper moral bearings. That guy would have eschewed the opportunity to befriend William Ayers. Famously, the putatively gutsy Obama did no such thing. Barack Obama embraced Ayers with particular gusto.

Closely associating with William Ayers was a moral decision and a wretched one at that. All Obama has left to do in regards to this issue is deny the obvious - that it was indeed a moral decision. For the morality of cozying up to such a figure will strike most people as indefensible.

HT: Jonah Goldberg, Allah

The podium at Invesco kind of looks like Jordan's Temple of Hercules, where Obama delivered a speech during his world tour:

Eagle-eyed reader (and Iraq War veteran) JB Smith emails that if the Republicans feel it necessary to counter Obama’s master stroke of tapping Joe Biden as vice-president, there’s only one serious option – Trent Lott.

Think of it. Both have comical pseudo-hair. Both gravitate to the career-ruining gaffe. Both talk too much. Scratch that – both talk way too much. And both have been around Washington since the earth cooled (although it feels like longer).

Fortunately, it doesn’t appear the McCain campaign should have any reason to feel the need to counter Joe Biden. Bad news for Trent Lott, good news for the rest of us.

Last night Hillary Clinton spoke at the Democratic Convention, and technically threw her support behind Barack Obama. But bloggers agree with Real Clear Politics's Tom Bevan, who says that while she hit "almost all the right notes tonight...she did not say Obama was ready to be Commander in Chief."

Townhall's Matt Lewis says, "She endorsed Obama--but she didn't embrace Obama ..." TNR's Jonathan Chait explains that "she did not say anything positive about Obama as a person. Her reasons for supporting Obama were all ways of saying that Obama is a Democrat."

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt thinks the Obama camp might not be thrilled with her speech because "Hillary was looking great and communicating one message: But for our crazy rules, I'd be the nominee and we'd be 15 point ahead." Ace explains, "So she's announcing 'Yeah, I'll do the minimum required of me, but gee, if you wanted me to be an attack dog, you should have made me Veep, and if you wanted my full support of the Democratic nominee, you should have made me the Democratic nominee.'" And at The Corner, Rich Lowry concludes, "Nothing she said tonight will be incompatible with what she'll want to say if Obama loses in November: 'Told you so.'" Still, Power Line's John Hinderaker notes, "She was intensely annoying. You could just about hear the sound of television sets clicking off all across America. Good night, Hillary."

For the record: The orange pantsuit looked fantastic, especially against the blue backdrop, and Hillary's never looked better--the infamous bags under her eyes are gone!