OK. Sen. Clinton made a great speech last night.  As many of the pundits are saying (Olbermann, Bob Schieffer, etc.), it's hard to know what more Obama would have expected from her.

And yet...we will still hear the whispering from the chattering classes...was it enough? Will it bring unity? Will it turn the tide?

And we will still hear about trying to find the "red meat" of this convention...have the first two days been wasted...how Biden and Obama must deliver tremendous speeches in order to save his candidacy.

To which I offer the simplest solution to this nonsense:

Turn back the clock to 2004.  I remember watching the Democratic Convention that year and seeing Sen. Kerry attempt to define himself as the war hero ready to be commander in chief.  I remember, too, that I thought it was a risky strategy.  Nary a word about his accomplishments and service as a United States Senator, which was by far the more compelling biography.  No, Kerry went out of his way to define himself before the Swiftboaters got to him.

Now McCain is actively swiftboating himself, in a different context and with a different method.  Not with the lies of swiftboaters, but with the truth that everybody knows:

I was a POW in Vietnam.

If McCain continues to define himself in this way, he will lose. Big.

So, a little poll from Zogby comes out and lots of people are in freakout mode, and Kos has front-paged about how silly that is.

Good.

Let me add one little bit o' info to the fire for each of you to chew on...

Anybody here remember 1992?

not going to be perfect.

No, that's right, regardless of who Obama deems to run with, that person will have flaws.  Probably a ton of them.

So as the latest buzz keeps on keeping on, (apparently now on Biden...so we have a bunch of diaries ad infinitum about HIS flaws now...having sufficiently trashed Kaine and Bayh as much as possible), let's remember whoever it is, they are not the "perfect" fit for Obama, or for the party, or even the country. Just ain't gonna happen.

As you have probably heard by now numerous times, the "no drama" edict is the one handed down from the top of the Obama campaign that permeates every facet of that organization.  Every person hired to the Obama campaign gets the "no drama" speech when they are hired.  We don't do drama here. Sorry. Tight ship and all that.

Perhaps it is the lull in the season, perhaps it is the fact that Obama is on vacation, perhaps it is the Olympics dominating the news cycle, but...a lot of us in the political realm and in the media are seeking the drama.  Drama good. Boring bad.

Well, from what I can see, the drama doesn't help.  And I'm taking the Obama no drama pledge from here on out.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the McCain camp is copying from the Rove playbook by projecting his own weakness on his opponent.  Another new ad today hits Obama on taxes, creating the fear spiral that Obama will raise middle class taxes through the roof.

Forget for a moment that it is not Obama's plan at all.  Forget the talking points about Obama's plan that make him look like he is on the defensive when he needs to "clarify" his plan.

Let's take a look at McCain's tax record.  Frankly, it ain't pretty.

It's a laugher, I gotta say. McCain starts off with the "celebrity" stuff again, but this time with a twist...Obama can't help you with your economic condition because his policies will hurt the economy.  Damn celebrities and all that.

First, the ad.  Click here to watch and check out around the thirteen second mark.

Transcription of the offending portion:

(Pics of Obama)

NARRATOR: Is the biggest celebrity in the world ready to help your family?

The real Obama promises higher taxes and more government spending.

So...fewer jobs.

OK folks.  As you know a bunch of us are going to get together in Austin this week, and part of that get together will be two sessions, one on Friday and on Saturday, to kick off a netroots-wide effort to put some language together to submit to the DNC and Obama camp as part of THEIR effort to get everyday citizen type input on the DNC platform. (I previously diaried here about this effort so you can get more details.)

Anyway, I wanted to update you some more on how this is going to work...

Ask and ye shall receive.

As you might have seen a few days ago, I wrote a diary surmising that maybe, just maybe, we should take the opportunity Barack Obama and the DNC has given us to put some input into the Democratic Party platform and work a bit on it at Netroots Nation.

Well, no sooner than 24 hours after that post, I got an e-mail from NN organizers saying they were planning on doing just that, and BTW, WMTL, would you help us organize the effort?

Me and my big mouth...follow me over the fold for the details...

I am generally loathe to engage in the speculative diaries about who should be on the cabinet should Barack Obama win.  But after watching Russ last night on "Countdown," it occurred to me that Feingold really should be our next Attorney General.

I know many people have their personal favorites (John Edwards' name comes up a lot), but think about this: which person has consistently been right in the fight for civil liberties?  Which person was the only one to oppose the Patriot Act? Which person has led the charge to get big corporate money out of our politics?

Russ Feingold. And now, I think Russ can best serve his country again as Attorney General.

As you have probably heard by now, via various diaries and the like, Barack Obama and the DNC are opening up the development of the Democratic Platform to folks like you and I.  They are asking all of us to host platform development parties the week of July 19th-27th.  

This got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing), primarily because I'll be on vacation all that week (but I will be at Netroots Nation for a portion of it)...what if...

the good folks attending NN got together and developed some ideas for the platform ourselves?

I was getting all set to break my self-imposed ban on meta diaries to comment on all the warfare going on between the generations and what not, only because of its tiresome nature.  

And then I got a call from my mother to inform me my great uncle died.  I can't remember his exact age, but he was in his nineties.  He went in the hospital last week for heart issues.  He was the last of his generation on my father's side.  Dad is pretty shook up about it. It is sad to lose my great uncle, but I am happy he went on his own terms. He told my dad he knew it was time, and that is, I think, the best we call can wish for...knowing when it our time.

Up until now, I haven't gotten that worked up about FISA, in particular the retroactive immunity.  Yes, it's bad.  Very bad.  Parts of the new FISA legislation are even worse that the immunity clause, in particular the extension from the 72 hours, to one week, of wire tappin' prior to going to the FISA court, as well as the seeming expansion from "foreign" to more domestic sources.  It is a bad bill and should be defeated, although I say again, I'm not tremendously worked up about it.

Having said that...Sen. Obama needs to pay attention to what has happened with this bill.  Because THIS is what is wrong with Washington...and THIS is what he needs to focus his message of "change" on.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I happen to think former Vice-Presidents make perfect running mates.  I mean, they know how to do the job already, there is nothing preventing them from serving as VP again, and they've already been vetted.

Having said that, there is one person in particular that would make a perfect running mate this November. He's been Vice-President already, is a party loyalist, and is a veteran of his own campaign for President.

That seems to be a message the Republicans want to perptuate this November.

In a strange exchange between former Maryland Governor (and hoping to be Governor again someday) Bob Ehrlich and a caller on his radio talk show this week, the Governor seemed to imply, in agreeing with a caller, that should Obama get elected, we will get some sort of civil war between the Black Panthers and the KKK.

Seriously.  If this is Republican thinking, no wonder we've been in the tank in this country for 8 years...

I've been blogging for about four years now (it seems hard to believe, now that I mention it), and the thing that continues to impress me about the netroots is how organic it is.  From blogs, to Meetups, to Drinking Liberally, even to the Presidential campaigns (starting with Howard Dean and now with our Democratic Presidential Nominee, Barack Obama), this is a bottom-up, not top-down, operation. And there is probably nothing more organic than the Netroots Nation Convention.

This year will be my first time attending the Convention. I'm psyched.  I couldn't make the first Yearly Kos in Vegas because of time and cost, and to be honest, because I didn't "get" it.  I mean, why did we need a convention, I wrote back then.  We have a convention everyday here in the "tubes"!

Boy was I stupid.

Well, not really.  But with today's 5-4 decision restoring the writ of habeas corpus from the dastardly Military Commissions of Act of 2006, the Supreme Court sided with those Senators and Congressman -- including Obama -- who understood the rule of law and respected the Constitution more than fear.

I thought it might be constructive to go to the way back machine and see what the Democratic candidate for President exactly said about this act and the writ of habeas corpus in 2006...

I'm going to espouse an unpopular, or what is probably going to be, an unpopular viewpoint in this diary.  Not the first time, won't be the last time, I'm sure.

Seemingly out of nowhere, I awoke to find another clarion call to impeach.  This time, it appears prompted by Congressman Kucinich.  Make no mistake: I've said before and I'll say again that I would support impeachment of this President because he is deserving, under the rule of law.  But today, I cannot find the energy to muster the outrage, or to join the ranks of my fellow citizens to push forward.  I feel, at this time in our history, it is an ill-fated journey wrought with landmines.