Iqra’i

Dinner is made, the dogs are walked, and I am settled back in for another round of liveblogging. Part one is here. Will is picking up again over here.

8:03pm Melissa Etheridge is doing a bizarre medley of patriotic songs and Bob Dylan.

8:05pm All she’s saying is give peas a chance. You never know. You might like them.

8:09pm Texas didn’t get its roll call vote, so I didn’t get to see Broockman. Damn you, Hillary; couldn’t you have made your important and moving gesture after I got to see my friend on TV?

8:11pm Harry Reid says that wars are impossible without oil. Also, air.

8:13pm Reid cites Carter; I agree. The convention is provoking a great deal of malaise.

8:14pm It’s kind of rich when career politicians exhort us to speak truth to power.

8:16pm “Barack Obama is unique, but so are we all.”

8:17pm Harry Reid is lecturing. If he were a talking head on cable news, I’d change channels. He’s right, but he’s boring. This is not convention fodder, it’s a lullaby.

8:20pm First female Command Sergeant Major of the US Army. Two words out of her mouth and she’s already more interesting, charismatic, and impressive than Reid. Can we make Michele Jones the Senate Majority Leader?

8:22pm The Democrats on Iraq: “We like war, just not this one. Let’s bomb a different Middle Eastern country!”

8:23pm “He understands all our veterans, both active and reserve…and knows the difference between the two.” Burn.

8:25pm Rep. Patrick Murphy and 25 hunks of beefcake take the stage.

8:27pm Aw, he pronounces “Philadelphia” the way I do. I feel so much less provincial now. (Say: fluff-ya.)

8:29pm Will reminds me that Murphy was the only House member to vote against a resolution honoring the New York Giants for their Superbowl win. After all, they beat the Eagles.

8:31pm Madeleine Albright takes the stage. She has a bizarre lapel pin that appears to be a rhinestone eagle with a top hat.

8:32pm “We have learned that American foreign policy is not foreign any more.” You mean, the things that we do might actually…have consequences? Say it ain’t so!

8:34pm Albright says Obama will summon me to a new era where technology is harnessed to improve people’s lives. I prefer the era where technology is harnessed to snark at famous people on the Internet.

8:35pm She wants a world where “democracy is promoted, not imposed.” That’s not exactly a clear distinction.

8:36pm Evan “I bet those grapes were sour anyway” Bayh repeats the same line: McCain is four more years of eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling. 

8:39pm ”Our brave soldiers were killed because of their reckless incompetence.” A vague pronoun reference is no one’s friend.

8:43pm This is really just uninspiring rhetoric. It looks like Bayh would have been a pretty awful VP choice, based on his performance here.

8:44pm The parade of random Democrats continues with Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Unsurprisingly, he says that Obama will be awesome. 

8:48pm I’m bored. Bring me crazy ex-Presidents!

8:51pm Jack Reed didn’t say “God Bless America.” He is clearly a Communist.

8:52pm Tom Daschle wears David Brooks glasses. They look better on him.

8:53pm Daschle: We can’t afford four more years of change we can glass ceiling.

9:02pm Right on schedule, Clinton comes on stage.

9:04pm The crowd is going wild, and he’s clearly loving it. He has to stop and tell everyone to sit down.

9:05pm “I’m here first to support Barack Obama.” There’s a little hitch between the last two words, but Michelle gives it a standing ovation.

9:07pm I keep expecting Michelle Obama to unhinge her jaw and swallow him live.

9:10pm ”Barack Obama is the man for this job.” Bizarre emphasis, but he’s saying the things he needs to say.

9:13pm Bill says that Barack is ready to be President. I don’t remember his oratory as president, but this is pretty uninspiring.

9:16pm Hillary is nodding along. He’s picking up steam with stories about real people. “What about the assault on science and the defense of torture? And what about Katrina and cronyism?” I take it back.

9:19pm Spontaneous chanting from the floor: Yes we can. Bill: “Yes we can, but first we have to elect him!”

9:20pm Bill warns that the post-2000 failure of American policy is the outcome of “far right” ideology, period.

9:23pm Oh, he’s brought up himself. Did you know that he was President? Twice? And that Obama is just like him?

9:24pm ”The right side of history” is a really creepy turn of phrase. Keep your Hegel out of my White House!