6:50 Central Time: My resolve jells.
7:15: I'm watching PBS tonight. C-SPAN last night. PBS has HD + longer coverage than the networks. (I don't have CNN HD.) The introductory material is about how last night somehow had to be soft-focus on Michelle and Teddy. But tonight, we'll have "red meat." Yes, I'm hoping for more excitement tonight.
7:24: A home-care worker is reading a script so robotically that it's kind of ironically human (and nice). Who would feel natural in that situation? Obama spent the day with her once, working at her job, to prove whatever that proves. The sound of talking in the hall almost drowns her out. Now, another working woman. This seems to be a parade of working women — in bright-colored suits that seem to be a tribute to Hillary's many suits.
7:28: That last woman had such a harsh voice. Now, with a deeper voice, it's Governor Janet Napolitano. The bright color for her bright-colored suit of the night is red. She's doing a nice job of laying into John McCain, but I feel these nagging feminist pains. Why is this woman — and why is Hillary — stuck on some special woman's night?
7:53: A man is talking. How is this happening? I rewind to see Jim MacNeil saying, "There's a Republican. Yes, a Republican." He's totally puzzled. It's the mayor of Fairbanks, Alaska, Jim Whitaker. Ooh, isn't he embarrassed to be relegated to Women's Night? He seems completely unfamiliar with his speech as he begins "We are Americans first" and pauses so you can tell he's thinking: American's first what? He goes on about energy. He explains why he's here: "to endorse Barack Obamas." That's not a typo. He says Barack Obamas.
8:04: Governor Kathleen Sebelius. John IMs, "I love her symphonies." Her bright-colored suit of the night is the reddest of all possible reds. She's out redding Napolitano. Against the bright blue background, it's like a psychedelic poster from 1968. It's searing my eyeballs. Yet her voice is so insanely flat. She speaks as if she's alone in a room memorizing the speech.The din of conversation in the hall is overwhelming. She's reciting words that were written to ravage John McCain, but with her delivery, it's quite comic. Well, there are actually punchlines all over the place, but I don't know if they'd make me laugh if she had a comic touch. It's funnier this way. But no one is listening.
8:16: Man, is this boring. Bring on the Hillary.
8:31: Lilly Ledbetter. She's surprised and "umbled." Great southern accent with a robotic but somehow impassioned delivery. She was the plaintiff in an important recent sex discrimination case, which she lost because she filed the lawsuit outside of the statutory limitations period. As she puts it, "Our Court sided with big business." But what she should say, to be honest, is: "Our Court declined to rewrite the statute to be fair to me." She goes on to blame the Senate for voting down the amendment that would make it possible to sue if you don't know about the discrimination when it first takes place, but then she says that Barack Obama as President will solve the problem: "As President, he has promised to appoint Justices who will enforce laws that protect everyday people." That doesn't really add up. But she's doing a good job of making us feel that the Democrats will protect the rights of working people.
8:41: The keynote speaker, the former governor of Virginia, Mark Warner. His theme is the future. Technology and economic development are important. He's trying to pump us up about that general idea. It's not at all clear that it has much to do with Obama. He says it doesn't matter if good ideas come from Democrats or Republicans. Now, he's boasting about the things he achieved as governor of Virginia, and it just makes me think about how Obama has no record at all of achievements like that.
9:15: Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachussetts. I'm getting nothing out of this. Reach for tomorrow... "Government is simply the name we use for the things we choose to do together." That's a quote from Barney Frank. Sorry. I detest sentimentality about government. I want more critical thinking and humility.
9:39: Here's the film about Hillary Clinton. It's mainly about the notion that women can achieve. She wanted to be an astronaut. She "dared to reach up." Her mother told her you can be anything you want. Lots of nice, smiley pictures, but it's generic pro-woman material. Let all women feel great. (But she lost!)
9:41: Chelsea Clinton looks gorgeous, with big hair and (finally!) a dark, skirted suit. She introduces her "hero" and her mother, Hillary Clinton. Hillary's dressed in bright orange. We see Bill, glowing and clapping and licking his lips and sticking his tongue out — in a somewhat reptilian way. Now, he's mouthing "I love you" over and over. Hillary is honored to be here, and the crowd goes wild.
10:00: Somewhere in there, Hillary said that she supports Barack Obama, but for the most part, it felt like another one of her campaign speeches. Anecdotes. Lists of problems, principles, and policies. We kept seeing closeups of Michelle Obama, who seemed to be closely monitoring the her husband's wily old opponent. And Hillary didn't do anything wrong, but did she help Barack Obama? She did say, addressing her supporters, "Were you in it just for me?" She answers that they must have supported her because they supported what she believed in and wanted to achieve. And therefore, we need to a Democrat in the White House. She says Obama's name a few times, but it seems to me as if it's just something that follows by reason of the desire to have a Democrat in the White House.
10: 30: And I'm not really sure exactly how she ended it, because I'm one of the viewers who used a DVR to record the show, and she spilled over into the next hour. They should have taken that into account.
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