THE BIG DOG AND THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.

Last night, Bill Clinton demonstrated the real value of political experience -- it's not that it makes you a better decision-maker or a wiser crafter of policy, it's that it makes you better able to see where the contours of power are. And while they exist around individuals, they are much stronger around parties and ideologies. In Clinton's speech, George Bush and John McCain are symptoms of a disease called conservatism. This passage is the most important thing anyone has said at this convention:

On the two great questions of this election — how to rebuild the American dream and how to restore America's leadership in the world — [John McCain] still embraces the extreme philosophy that has defined his party for more than 25 years.

And it is, to be fair to all the Americans who aren't as hard-core Democrats as we, it's a philosophy the American people never actually had a chance to see in action fully until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and the Congress.

Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades actually were implemented. And look what happened.

They took us from record surpluses to an exploding debt; from over 22 million new jobs to just 5 million; from increasing working families' incomes to nearly $7,500 a year to a decline of more than $2,000 a year; from almost 8 million Americans lifted out of poverty to more than 5.5 million driven into poverty; and millions more losing their health insurance.

Now, in spite of all this evidence, their candidate is actually promising more of the same.

...

They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more.

In just a couple minutes he articulated an argument that had nothing to do with Obama in particular, and little to do with Bush or McCain in particular, but was all about electing Obama, defeating McCain and expanding the Democratic majorities in Congress. But he fucked it all up by leading in talking about what a great guy John McCain is:

The Republicans will nominate a good man who served our country heroically and suffered terribly in Vietnam. He loves our country every bit as much as we all do. As a Senator, he has shown his independence on several issues.

Later, Joe Biden gave a solid speech, making quite a few pointed attacks on McCain. Unfortunately, he undercut himself as well:

John McCain is my friend. We've known each other for three decades. We've traveled the world together. It's a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism John demonstrated still amaze me.

It seems that as the convention goes on, John McCain becomes a better and better man and friend of various high-ranking Democrats. So, a request to Howard Dean, Al Gore, Barack Obama and all of tonight's speakers: Please ask your friend John McCain to vacate the premises so that dangerous warmonger John McCain can be brought in for our examination. This man is not your friend, this man is "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." This man is eating cake while New Orleans drowns. This man is overturning Roe and opposing the Ledbetter Act. This man is privatizing Social Security. If this man is your friend, and the harshest thing you can think of to say about him is that he's got seven or eight or twelve houses, kindly piss off. Some of us are trying to save this country and you're not helping.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2008:08:28:09:29