Media Mudballs

"Watching this convention so far, I don't get the feeling that these people have lived through the same eight years as I have. I may have aired more anti-Bush passion on this blog - written by someone who endorsed the guy in 2000 - than I have heard from these speakers so far. Unless you understand how terrible the wounds of the last eight years have been, you do not understand the urgency of the Obama candidacy. I worry that that hasn't been put across forcefully enough so far. Clinton didn't do it."

One of the few pundits I found offering fulsome praise is Salon Editor Joan Walsh:

"There may be critics -- for Clinton, there always are -- but she hit all her targets Tuesday night, even working in a joke about her pantsuits . . .

"So was it enough, either to win over stubborn Obama-skeptics in her fan base, or to stop the media from saying she isn't doing enough to try? Nothing will be enough to do all that, but it was a start."

National Review's Victor Davis Hanson remains in the she-wants-him-to-lose camp:

"Bottom line: she remains loyal Democrat, dissed victim, the should-have-been nominated candidate, senior healer ready to clean up the mess of 2008, and savior in 2012. Note well Chelsea's ubiquity, the slick Hillary infomercial, Bill's wide grin, and the Clinton triad everywhere.

"And the reaction of the Obamanics? They will belatedly seem like the baffled victims who discover their picked pockets, know full well who did it, but can't quite tell the police when, how, or by whom it happened."

But not all conservatives see it that way. Hot Air's Ed Morrissey gives Hillary some credit:

"I believe this speech will go at least a significant way towards convincing her supporters to remain in the tent. It may take a few days for that to become apparent, but I'd expect a slow drift of Hillary dead-enders to return to Barack Obama."

Tonight it's Bill Clinton's turn. We had Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton loyalist and former Democratic chairman, on last night's Washington Post/Newsweek webcast. He said Hillary had moved on from the bruising primary season, but when I asked him about Bill--who couldn't bring himself to tell Kate Snow that Obama is qualified to be president--he couldn't say the same things. McAuliffe concedes that Bill is still unhappy over the way he was treated, even while denying a report that Hillary's husband balked at the limitations put on his speech when he really wants to brag about his administration. No one tells a former president what to say, McAuliffe insisted. Which is why tonight's performance will be doubly interesting.