“We had to pinch each other just to see if we was dreamin…” 

I’m still reeling with emotion from watching the whole thing.  How amazing it will be to have a president that inspires such high feelings, instead of inspiring cringes.  We’ll get more up later, but this is the first 16 minutes for you.

Transcripts of the whole speech below the fold

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When Stephen wants an unbiased and honest opinion of how Hillary Clinton’s speech went over with Democrats on Tuesday in Denver, who better to ask than Bill Kristol, right?

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COLBERT: “Now, of course, to judge convention speeches, I always turn to Bill Kristol. Monday night he said this about Michelle Obama’s  speech.”

KRISTOL: “I thought it was sort of generic.”

COLBERT: “And, as for Senator Clinton’s praise for Barack Obama, here’s how Kriristol described that.”

KRISTOL: “Generic. Could have been applied to any other democrat.”

COLBERT: What a wordsmith. Kristol’s description about Democratic speeches are so…. what’s the word? Interchangeable? Non-descript? A kind of cheap knockoff of a brand name product? It’ll come to me.

I’m checking in from Denver…

I’m hanging with georgia 10 and Kos….

Update: `Since McCain votes with Bush 90 percent of the time, Obama won’t take only a ten percent chance at change….

Most excellent speech.

UPDATE: (Nicole) Jesse Wendel from Group News Blog is liveblogging the event for John, who didn’t feel well enough to make it to the stadium. Here’s his first entry:`

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  Obama campaign chief of staff Jim Messina has some tough words for John McCain while detailing the campaign’s strategy during a meeting with Iowa Democrats.

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“Arizona: If McCain continues to be the schmuck he’s being, we’re gonna play there…tell some truth.”

(HT: Radio Iowa)

   In an op-ed at Murdoch’s London Times, associate editor Anatole Kalestsky writes that America must give the Republicans “a good kicking” to reassert the most important facet of democracy - not just to elect good governance but to get rid of bad governance. It’s an op-ed that is highly critical of the Democratic party’s choice - Murdoch’s UK papers preferred Clinton - and of Dem tactics to date. But it really gets the message across on McCain and the GOP.

Whether or not Mr McCain would continue the policies of President Bush (and much of the evidence suggests that his would be a Bush presidency on steroids), he would keep in power the coalition of interests that the Republican Party represents: the energy and military-industrial lobbies, the religious conservatives, the anti-environment interests and the neoconservative think-tanks. These groups - which have gained enormous influence, both financially and intellectually, under President Bush - are as responsible for the blunders of the Bush Administration as Mr Bush himself, arguably more so, given the President’s notorious lack of interest in the details of any of his own policies.

If a Republican is again elected president, these same centres of power will continue to dominate Washington. However many wars they encouraged, however high the price of oil rose, however many tax dollars were redistributed in their favour, the neoconservatives and Pentagon contractors and religious fundamentalists and oil and Wall Street lobbies would conclude that there would be no political price to pay for failure. They would be justified in concluding that there is no longer any democratic check on their ambitions.

It is only by ejecting the Republicans from the White House that American voters can send the message that they are still in charge of their country and that gross government incompetence will not go unpunished. Accountability - not personality or rhetoric or colour or age or gender - should be the overriding issue in this election.

That’s exactly right - and it’s great to see Bill Clinton, Biden and Kerry all do so very effectively rather than trying to keep the brand pristine. (Even the Right is admitting they did good - albeit with weasel words.) I’m a bit of an outside observer on US elections, being a “furriner’ and all, and it has disappointed me until now that the Dem campaign after the primaries had seemed rather flat. That’s changed, and while the Dems are still sticking to the moral high ground by not descending to the kind of lies and smears of McCain’s campaign, they’re now obviously in no mood to let the Republicans have the field to themselves. As my pal Kyle Moore writes, if the Dems had pulled out these kinds of performances four years ago the Dems would be working on Kerry’s re-election. More of this, please.

The McCain campaign likes to tell us we’re a “nation of whiners” complaining about a “mental recession,” so it should come as no surprise that their solution to the health care crisis is to simply have the Census Bureau redefine the term uninsured. Seriously. Let John Goodman, McCain’s point-man on health care issues, explain:

“I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime,” Mr. Goodman said. “The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

“So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved.”

Voila! No more health care problems! All those “whiners”out there who are losing their homes due to unmanageable health care bills can sleep sound tonight. The health care crisis is solved!  As Michigan Messenger says:

If you’re uninsured, out of money - and not having a life-threatening emergency - you not only don’t exist in John McCain’s world, you’re completely out of luck. 

TP, dKos, West Viginia Blue, All Spin Zone all have more.

Richard Dreyfuss, appearing on MSNBC to discuss the new documentary he narrates, America Betrayed, on Hurricane Katrina, the worst man-made disaster in American history, seized the opportunity in front of a cheering crowd of onlookers to blast George W. Bush and the Republican party for all the damage they have inflicted upon this country over the last 8 years.

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Dreyfuss: I don’t think the Europeans have any confidence in our government. I think that the last eight years has destroyed two hundred years of respect and dedication. And I think we have been the point of meaning and admiration in the world for very specific reasons, and George Bush trashed it.

O’Donnell: So, you don’t think that John McCain would be able to manage this government well, would have a different response than George Bush to a Hurricane Katrina?

Dreyfuss: I think the Republican party is corrupt through and through. And even the republicans like Buckley before he died said ‘we should lose this election, go into the wilderness, and get cleansed’, and I believe that’s true. I think that they have been in office too long. I think that they are too adept at thievery, at moving the Constitution into places it never meant to go. I think that they have an extraordinary ability to divide rather than unite. And I think that I’m tired of being called a traitor, because I like my flag and I support the troops.

In what I must say seems to echo a theme similar to that of Naomi Kline’s must-read book, Shock Doctrine, America Betrayed promises to go beyond Katrina and delve into the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks, the war in Iraq, and offer “a long, hard look at how this country handles disaster, which ones they indirectly cause and how corporate America and their friends in the White House profit from those disasters in the long run.”

Can’t wait to see this one.

I know putting together a convention of this magnitude is no small task.

There have been many glitches and complaints, which is par for the course and I know the DNC have tried to do the best they could with parking and credentials and whatnot. But I have asked the DNC for weeks and weeks how they could help me get around during the convention because I have a handicap placard in California due to a real problem walking distances from my nerve damage. I got no response.

I didn’t see this link on their website. I wish it was more prominently placed. Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of security and many checkpoints, but there is no assistance available for those that are elderly or not in the best of health, who would not be able to walk miles and stand in the blistering heat waiting to proceed to the Pepsi Center. It’s hot and the high altitudes have many people flustered. How many of them knew that Denver would be so hard to maneuver in? I certainly didn’t.

When I finally got to the first check point, I asked if there were any carts to take the elderly and handicapped to the next stop. I was told that they were only there to get water for the Secret Service. Hey, they did an amazing job and needed the help too, but what about all the elderly people that came here, dressed to the nines and high heels, because this is an important event to them and they had to travel miles and stand for hour long check points to even see the Pepsi Center? I saw some almost passing out.

I made many calls, not asking for special treatment, but for decent treatment of a handicapped person. When I called ten times on Tuesday, I got voice mails and then was told I would be called back. Nothing happened. I left an angry message yesterday telling them I’d write about it and now suddenly I find out that there is help available. Really? Well, it’s too late now. I’m already devastated. I’m pretty good at putting on a happy face when I’m being interviewed and never want to make it much of an issue to my readers, but I just couldn’t handle the pain of trying to go out any more.

I have to take some of the blame too. I had people helping me and they came up short too in finding out all that could have been done. I’m writing this to voice a complaint so that the next time an organization puts on a huge event, they seriously take into consideration what all handicapped and elderly folks have to go through to even show up to support or cover that event. I promise to do a better job in finding out how to help those in need of assistance for future events. And I don’t think this is only a DNC problem. They are being very kind now and said they misunderstood my situation. I believe them, but I think it’s a systemic problem that needs more attention. Telling someone that you are handicapped is not always understood and I get that that’s why my calls were misinterpreted. I hope to help those in need in the future because this is a serious issue for many people.

The Convention still has been a blast and I think it’s been a valuable experience.  

  If you thought Joe Scarborough sending his court jester Willie Geist to ask Big Tent bloggers if they eat Cheetos and blog from their mother’s basement was a d*ck move, watch how he treats David Shuster in this clip from “Morning Joe.” Has there ever been anyone more petty and condescending as he is here? I have to give props to Shuster; I would have gotten up and decked Joe if he ever talked to me like that.

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SCARBOROUGH: What about your party? What’s your party? David Shuster, David, what’s your party?

SHUSTER: I have no party. I’m a complete independent.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh, you’re independent. Just like all..

SHUSTER: I’ll show you my voting card. I’ll show you how I’m registered later.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh…I feel so comforted by the fact that you’re an Independent. I bet everyone at MSNBC has “independent” on their voting cards. “Oh, we’re down the middle now.” Go ahead, David. No, no, go ahead. You’re an Independent David. Go ahead. Talk about my party. Go ahead.

Ummm, you served in Congress as a Republican, Joe. So, yes, your party is the Republican Party.

 Transcript below the fold:
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Never let it be said that Republicans and their counterparts in the conservative blogosphere (yes, Ann “I Like To Drink Wine and Blog About American Idol” Althouse, I’m looking right at you) can’t attempt to manufacture a scandal out of thin air that shows just how stupid they are. 

The impetus of this scandal is this article from Reuters, which breathlessly described the set for the upcoming speech by Barack Obama at Invesco Stadium as looking like an ancient Greek temple since there will be a series of columns behind from which Obama will appear and then walk onto a raised stage.

So Ann “Liberal Boobies Enrage Me” Althouse whips herself up into a righteous indignation, which is promptly echoed throughout the other sites.  (I won’t dignify her with a link, look it up) How dare Obama?  Is he trying to suggest that he’s a God or something???  The presumption! Do you see how messianic he is? His supporters are like a cult! (imagine her furious fingers typing away)

But see, here’s the problem, Ann.  You clearly haven’t traveled.  If you had actually ever gone to the seat of our federal government, Washington DC, guess what you’d see?  Columns!  Know why?  Because most of our federal buildings were designed in an architectural style called…wait for it…Greek Revival.  Which means, you know, lots of columns.  Like the ones in the front and back of the White House–where Obama will reside in January, by the way.  And the ones in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where exactly 45 years ago today, Martin Luther King gave a speech in which he said these words:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

So today, Ann “I’m a law professor, but I don’t know how to correctly interpret judges’ rulings” Althouse, Barack Obama will take the stage, designed symbolically to be reminiscent of the city from where he will be leading this country, and the site of one of the most stirring orations in our history (is this too nuanced for your conservative brain?), and accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency of the United States, having earned that nomination not because of the color of his skin, but because of the content of his character.  It is the fulfillment of that dream  Martin Luther King espoused 45 years ago.  A dream that your conservative compatriots have worked endlessly to suppress.

Doesn’t that make your righteous indignation over Greek temples and Greek gods seem just so pathetically ignorant?  By the way, do you have any memory of the stage from which George Bush accepted his nomination? Don’t look now, but there were columns!  *gasp!* 

UPDATE:  That presumptuous John McCain! Is he trying to insinuate he’s some sort of Greek God? (h/t Aimee)

  DNC Chairman Howard Dean appeared on The Daily Show Wednesday night and got in a not-so-subtle dig at John McCain’s age.

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Dean: “Is there a delay [in the audio feed] here? I think there’s a delay. It’s like inside John McCain’s brain.”

Forty-five years ago Today…

    In a remarkable development at the High Court in London, an email from a senior US State Dept. official has been revealed, apparently threatening to curb co-operation with Britain on international intelligence sharing if details on a detainees interrogation are revealed. Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, held at Gitmo, have taken legal action in the UK to force the release of details which, they say, will prove Mohamed was ilegally abducted and tortured into a confession. Mohamed claims that his torture included having his penis cut with a razor blade by Moroccan proxies for the US.

In an email to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was sent on to the court, Stephen Mathias, a legal adviser to the US state department, said that the disclosure of information would cause “serious and lasting damage to the US-UK intelligence-sharing relationship and thus the national security of the UK, and the aggressive and unprecedented intervention in the apparently functioning adjudicatory processes of a longtime ally of the UK, in contravention of well-established principles of international comity.”

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  After Joe Biden’s ferocious speech about John McCain’s poor judgment on national security issues, presumptive nominee Barack Obama dropped by to thank his wife, Hillary, and Bill for all their support and rousing speeches, and promised to make tomorrow night a memorable one.

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 ”I think the convention has gone pretty well so far. What do you think? I think Michelle Obama kicked it off pretty well, don’t you think? If I’m not mistaken, Hillary Clinton rocked the house last night. And just in case you were wondering, I think President Bill Clinton reminded us of what it’s like when you’ve got a President who puts people first. Thank you, President Clinton.”