McCain has some kind of symptom…  Open Thread below…

“Follow That Sound” is apparently the theme song for “The Cleaner” on A&E.

I wouldn’t know anything about that.

What I do know is that, when this song came over the wireless FM device in my car, I pulled over and jotted down “Sharon Little … Awesome…LNMC” on the nearest available scrap paper.

Questions answered.

My fellow Democrats, I say to you: Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world.

Barack Obama is ready to honor the oath, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States.

 Download | Play   Download | Play

The contrast between the Clinton legacy and the Bush/McCain legacy is just devastating:

People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

Look at the example the Republicans have set.

In this decade, American workers have consistently given us rising productivity. That means, year after year, they work harder and produce more.

Now, what did they get in return? Declining wages, less than one-fourth as many new jobs as in the previous eight years, smaller health care and pension benefits, rising poverty, and the biggest increase in income inequality since the 1920s. American families by the millions are struggling with soaring health care costs and declining coverage.

Full transcript below:

CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen…

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. You all sit down. We’ve got to get on with the show here. Come on.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be here tonight.

(APPLAUSE)

Sit down.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

I am honored to be here tonight. Please, stop.

AUDIENCE: Bill! Bill! Bill!

CLINTON: Please stop. Sit down. Sit down. Thank you.

AUDIENCE: Bill! Bill! Bill!

CLINTON: Please sit. Please sit.

You know, I — I love this, and I thank you, but we have important work to do tonight. I am here first to support Barack Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

And, second — and, second, I’m here to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden…

(APPLAUSE)

… though, as you will soon see, he doesn’t need any help from me.

(LAUGHTER)

I love Joe Biden, and America will, too.

What a year we Democrats have had. The primary began with an all-star line up. And it came down to two remarkable Americans locked in a hard-fought contest right to the very end. That campaign generated so much heat, it increased global warming.

(LAUGHTER)

Now, in the end, my candidate didn’t win. But I’m really proud of the campaign she ran.

(APPLAUSE)

I am proud that she never quit on the people she stood up for, on the changes she pushed for, on the future she wanted for all our children. And I’m grateful for the chance Chelsea and I had to go all over America to tell people about the person we know and love.

Now, I am not so grateful for the chance to speak in the wake of Hillary’s magnificent speech last night.

(LAUGHTER)

But I’ll do the best I can.

(APPLAUSE)

Last night, Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she is going to do everything she can to elect Barack Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

That makes two of us.

(APPLAUSE)

Actually, that makes 18 million of us…

(APPLAUSE)

… because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November.

(APPLAUSE)

And here’s why. And I have the privilege of speaking here, thanks to you, from a perspective that no other American Democrat, except President Carter, can offer.

Our — our nation is in trouble on two fronts. The American dream is under siege at home, and America’s leadership in the world has been weakened. Middle-class and low-income Americans are hurting, with incomes declining, job losses, poverty, and inequality rising, mortgage foreclosures and credit card debt increasing, health care coverage disappearing, and a very big spike in the cost of food, utilities, and gasoline.

And our position in the world has been weakened by too much unilateralism and too little cooperation…

(APPLAUSE)

… by a perilous dependence on imported oil, by a refusal to lead on global warming, by a growing indebtedness and a dependence on foreign lenders, by a severely burdened military, by a backsliding on global nonproliferation and arms control agreements, and by a failure to consistently use the power of diplomacy, from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Central and Eastern Europe.

(APPLAUSE)

Clearly, the job of the next president is to rebuild the American dream and to restore American leadership in the world.

(APPLAUSE)

And here’s what I have to say about that. Everything I learned in my eight years as president, and in the work I have done since in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, he has a remarkable ability to inspire people, to raise our hopes and rally us to high purpose. He has the intelligence and curiosity every successful president needs. His policies on the economy, on taxes, on health care, on energy are far superior to the Republican alternatives.

(APPLAUSE)

He has shown — he has shown a clear grasp of foreign policy and national security challenges and a firm commitment to rebuild our badly strained military.

His family heritage and his life experiences have given him a unique capacity to lead our increasingly diverse nation in an ever more interdependent world.

(APPLAUSE)

The long, hard primary tested and strengthened him. And in his first presidential decision, the selection of a running mate, he hit it out of the park.

(APPLAUSE)

With Joe Biden’s experience and wisdom, supporting Barack Obama’s proven understanding, instincts, and insight, America will have the national security leadership we need.

And so, my fellow Democrats, I say to you: Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world.

(APPLAUSE)

Barack Obama is ready to honor the oath, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States.

 (APPLAUSE) As president, he will work for an America with more partners and fewer adversaries. He will rebuild our frayed alliances and revitalize the international institutions which helped to share the cost of the world’s problems and to leverage the power of our influence.

He will put us back in the forefront of the world’s fight against global warming and the fight to reduce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

(APPLAUSE)

He will continue and enhance our nation’s commendable global leadership in an area in which I am deeply involved: the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, including — including — and this is very important — a renewal of the battle against HIV and AIDS here at home.

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.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

Think about it: more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will swell the deficit, increase inequality, and weaken the economy; more Band-Aids for health care that will enrich insurance companies, impoverish families, and increase the number of uninsured; more going it alone in the world, instead of building the shared responsibilities and shared opportunities necessary to advance our security and restore our influence.

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

AUDIENCE: No!

CLINTON: Now, let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America, a simple message: Thanks, but no thanks.

In this case…

(APPLAUSE)

In this case, the third time is not the charm.

(APPLAUSE)

My fellow Democrats, 16 years ago, you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.

Together, we prevailed in a hard campaign in which Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

(APPLAUSE)

Sound familiar?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

CLINTON: It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it will not work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, Senator Obama’s life is a 21st-century incarnation of the old-fashioned American dream. His achievements are proof of our continuing progress toward the more perfect union of our founders’ dreams. The values of freedom and equal opportunity, which have given him his historic chance, will drive him as president to give all Americans — regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability — their chance to build a decent life and to show our humanity, as well as our strengths, to the world.

We see that humanity, that strength, and our nation’s future in Barack and Michelle Obama and their beautiful children.

We see them reinforced by the partnership with Joe Biden, his fabulous wife, Jill, a wonderful teacher, and their family.

Barack Obama will lead us away from the division and fear of the last eight years back to unity and hope.

So if, like me, you believe America must always be a place called Hope, then join Hillary and Chelsea and me in making Barack Obama the next president of the United States.

Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

A President Obama will choose diplomacy first and military force as a last resort.

(APPLAUSE)

But, in a world troubled by terror, by trafficking in weapons, drugs and people, by human rights abuses of the most awful kind, by other threats to our security, our interests, and our values, when he cannot convert adversaries into partners, he will stand up to them.

(APPLAUSE)

Barack Obama also will not allow the world’s problems to obscure its opportunities.

CLINTON: Everywhere, in rich and poor countries alike, hard- working people need good jobs, secure, affordable health care, food and energy, quality education for their children and economically beneficial ways to fight global warming.

These challenges cry out for American ideas and American innovation. When Barack Obama unleashes them, America will save lives, win new allies, open new markets, and create wonderful new jobs for our own people.

(APPLAUSE)

Most important of all, Barack Obama knows that America cannot be strong abroad unless we are first strong at home.

(APPLAUSE)

People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

(APPLAUSE)

Look…

(APPLAUSE)

Look at the example the Republicans have set.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

In this decade, American workers have consistently given us rising productivity. That means, year after year, they work harder and produce more.

Now, what did they get in return? Declining wages, less than one-fourth as many new jobs as in the previous eight years, smaller health care and pension benefits, rising poverty, and the biggest increase in income inequality since the 1920s.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

American families by the millions are struggling with soaring health care costs and declining coverage.

I will never forget the parents of children with autism and other serious conditions who told me on the campaign trail that they couldn’t afford health care and couldn’t qualify their children for Medicaid unless they quit work and starved or got a divorce.

Are these the family values the Republicans are so proud of?

What about the military families pushed to the breaking point by multiple, multiple deployments? What about the assault on science and the defense of torture? What about the war on unions and the unlimited favors for the well-connected?

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

And what about Katrina and cronyism?

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

My fellow Democrats, America can do better than that.

(APPLAUSE)

And Barack Obama will do better than that.

(APPLAUSE)

Wait a minute. But first…

AUDIENCE: Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

CLINTON: Yes, he can, but, first, we have to elect him.

(APPLAUSE)

The choice is clear. The Republicans in a few days will nominate a good man who has served our country heroically and who suffered terribly in a Vietnamese prison camp. He loves his country every bit as much as we do. As a senator, he has shown his independence of right-wing orthodoxy on some very important issues.

But on the two great questions of this election — how to rebuild the American dream and how to restore America’s leadership in the world — he still embraces the extreme philosophy that has defined his party for more than 25 years.

(APPLAUSE)

What did you think about John Kerry and Bill Clinton’s speeches?

 Open thread below…

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

As with most issues, what Joe says as opinion, is simply contrary to fact.   Surveys of top political bloggers (here and here) in 2006 found that most are male, white, well-educated, around 45 years old, and earning above-average income.  Kinda exactly like you, Joe.  We also have extensive activist experience (I shook Ted Kennedy’s hand at 18 and haven’t really washed under the nails since), and we have an addictive level of news consumption (which is the only explanation I have as to why we get up to watch Morning Joe).

As an Ivy-educated middle-aged mother-of-three homeowner who does not own any Star Wars memorabilia, I can see why you might be jealous of bloggers, Joe.  Few of us have to deal with little niggling details like dead staff in our office or having to carry the water of the Worst. President. Ever. 

Also, as a blogger, I can tell you in the presence of my considerable, well-educated audience, to kiss my liberal elite blogger ass.  

 Download | Play   Download | Play

“With eyes firmly fixed on the future, in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory, with faith in our party and our country, let’s declare together, in one voice, right here, right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our President. Madame Secretary, I move that the convention suspend the procedural rules and suspend the further conduct of the roll cal vote — all votes cast by the delegates will be counted — and I move Senator Barack Obama of Illinois be sleceted by this convetion by acclamation as the nominee of the democtaric party for president of the United States.”

Why is the Democratic Convention being ruined by these creeps? And why do all the networks allow it to happen? Why do we need them on in force to counter what is supposed to be our event?

I’m in Denver and it’s a completely different atmosphere. Party unison abounds, but you’d never know it from watching TV. Karl Rove acts like the biggest troll known to man—making sure to point out every little detail he dislikes. Well, his mission is to get McCain in the White House. But he’s the expert that Chris Wallace goes to for his “unbiased” take.

Will the Democratic talkers be allowed to do the same to the Republican Convention? I think not. It will be viewed as being an incredible event.

Random House pulled out of publishing the book last minute, when they somehow got the idea that bad Islamic terrorists might retaliate against the publisher for the book’s content.   In the meantime, at least one book prize committee has announced that they will not consider any Random House submissions until this book is published, due to the cowardice exhibited in pulling the title:

…we can not pretend that this type of cowardice will disappear without serious remonstrance. Until The Jewel of Medina is actually published, The Langum Charitable Trust will not consider submissions of any books, for any of our prizes, from Random House or any of its affiliates. We do this reluctantly, since our most recent prize in American historical fiction went to a Random House title.

Salman Rushdie, the most famous author to deal with threats and censorship due to his book’s content vis-a-vis Islam, is supporting publication of the book on free-speech, rather than literary, grounds.

The Atlantic says they haven’t seen “evidence that he read The Jewel of Medina or liked the excerpts.”  But Rushdie is currently in the Random House stable of authors (although they didn’t publish Satanic Verses):

“I am very disappointed to hear that my publishers, Random House, have cancelled another author’s novel, apparently because of their concerns about possible Islamic reprisals,” Rushdie said.  “This is censorship by fear and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”

I know all eyes are on Denver, but I thought we needed a little reminder that there’s a whole world out there outside of Colorado and it’s not such great shape.  Sadly, with John McCain in office we’re not likely to put it on a better track either.    Greenpeace: 

Increased temperatures due to global warming have combined to create news of three separate climate disasters in different parts of North America. But while news of these disasters emerged in the past week, several states and Google announced major new investments in the clean energy technology necessary to solve the climate crisis and prevent even worse global warming. Meanwhile, President Bush and Congress were touting false solutions, like offshore oil drilling, that will only accelerate the climate crisis.

“These three events add up to a planet in deep trouble,” said Greenpeace Global Warming Campaigner Melanie Duchin. “But while states and companies are responding to the climate crisis, the Washington politicians are just spraying offshore oil on the fire.”

What three things, you ask?

1. Sea Ice at Second Lowest Level Ever; Polar Bears at Risk of Drowning as Ice Melts

2. Greenland Glacier Breaking Up, Threatening Sea Level Rise

3. Fay Dumps 26 Inches of Rain on Florida

That’s one seriously miffed Mother Nature.  And as we lose more polar bears to drowning out in open water due to ice melting, what has the Bush adminstration done?   Pressure Congress to open up more off shore drilling leases and tried to gut the Endangered Species Act, of course.  Credo and the Wildlife Action Center have teamed up with an action letter you can sign to ask lawmakers to not allow Bush to dismantle the Endangered Species Act.

   Down With Tyranny:

(Tuesday) Florida had its congressional primaries and with about 93% of the vote counted it’s looking like Donna Edwards may soon have a strong progressive with a reform-minded agenda working with her in Congress. (Oh, there’s still the general election in November… but Keller barely managed to hold onto his party’s nomination against Todd Long who’s getting 47% of the Republican vote.) AP has called the race for Grayson but says it’s too close to call on the GOP side. [..]

Which ad do you think will be most effective in the general election? 

or this?

Both of them are hard to resist.  Please consider donating to our Blue America ActBlue page so he can keep running the ads.

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

Blitzer: “But the decision formally not to go ahead and vet [Hillary Clinton], ask for the documents and interview her and all that, which is what you did with Senator Biden, Senator Bayh, and Governor Kaine, and the others…”

Kennedy: “Wow. You know an awful lot about this. Because I’m not gonna tell you anything else.”

Blitzer: “Walk us through that process.”

Kennedy: “No! I’m not gonna walk you through that decision. It’s a confidential process.”

Originally spotted (with a different candidate) at The General’s. Open thread below…

By 48% to 43%, Americans surveyed by Gallup say Obama would better handle the issue of taxes than John McCain. And with good reason. As the Washington Post detailed, an analysis by the Tax Policy Center showed:

“Obama’s plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy.”

Those whose income is under $67,000 - 60% of all American taxpayers - would see substantially larger tax cuts under the Obama plan. While McCain’s plan concentrates 58% of its benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans, Obama’s rollback of the Bush tax cuts above $250,000 produces tax increases for that group.

Sadly, Obama’s story is not getting through. In the face of the TPC’s analysis showing that 95% of American taxpayers would see savings under the Obama tax plan, 53% of the Gallup respondents wrongly believe their tax burden would increase under President Obama. Meanwhile, despite the same analysis showing McCain’s plan to make permanent and expand the Bush tax cuts would produce a staggering $2.8 trillion in red ink for the federal budget, the Republican still claims the mantle of fiscal discipline.

And to be sure, CNN did American voters no favors today.

Crossposted at Perrspectives.

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

“John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 95% of the time. That’s not a maverick. That’s a sidekick.”

“The Bush-McCain Republicans inherited the strongest economy in history and drove it into a ditch. They cut taxes on the wealthiest of us, and passed the pain to the least of us.  They ran up the debt gave huge subsidies to oil companies and now they’re asking for four more years? How bout four more months.”

There’s something about the camera zoom and the way he says “that’s a sidekick” that just cracks me up.

Devilstower at dKos has a great graphic.

Either the altitude or the hours are getting to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.  Either way, Tweety needs a nap.  Yesterday, in his intro to Steny Hoyer, Keith Olbermann made an off-handed reference to the hosts “yapping” as a way to apparently apologize to Hoyer for the delayed appearance, to which Matthews took offense.

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

The very exercise of FOX News Channel covering the Democratic National Convention in and of itself is laughable.  Like there is any way that they would actually employ any kind of intellectual honesty or ethics and analyze the coverage.  Pfffft. Everyone knows that they’re bringing on their conservative and/or neocon roster of talking heads and find ways to tear about the Democrats, both individually and collectively.  And this little exchange between Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer is endemic of the whole of FOX’s coverage. 

First of all, I’m not sure if Krauthammer is on sedatives or merely aspiring to be the television version of a sedative, but it was painfully hard to stay awake through the transcribing process.  I’m convinced that Krauthammer had a hard time keeping awake too, because his sentences didn’t completely make sense.  When asked for his impressions of Wednesday’s speeches, Krauthammer (who, like his National Review buddy Bill Kristol, has a long history of being completely and utterly wrong in his assertions), he couldn’t obviously break the FOX code, but his criticisms were so vague and so oddly similar to those things that he praised in Bush in 2000 that it’s almost comical to hear him struggle to find ways to slam Biden.

Biden is apparently too blue collar for Krauthammer (as opposed to the ‘guy you wanted to have a beer with’ Bush, whose appeal to the common man is undeniable).   And he didn’t talk about Obama enough–though why he’d be expected to in his acceptance of the nomination speech is never really explained.  And the attacks on McCain will fail (with whom? Democratic delegates? Who’s gonna buy that?) because everyone  knows that McCain is a maverick and obviously not Bush’s twin. 

But this is the depths that Krauthammer and FOX had to sink to find something to criticize the day with:  They had to pull the Kim Jong Il card.  Why?  Because delegates were waving signs at the convention!  My God, those commies!

The other element of the attack is the other theme, which is McCain as the Bush heir and that’s why you heard the refrain from uh the Biden saying not change, more of the same and you had the effect, that I find rather creepy, the audience holding up signs with slogans like you do in Pyongyang, which read “Not Change, More of the Same.” 

So lame.  I’ll bet next you’re going to accuse them of being terrorist sympathizers next because their cheers sound suspiciously close to Muslim ulullating, you pathetic neocon hack.  And given your track record of being right, Krauthammer, I’m going to take your predictions of doom and gloom as assurance that the Democrats are doing something right.

Full snore inducing transcripts below the fold:

HUME: Charles, your thoughts on this speech and these developments tonight.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I thought it was a disjointed week, and a disjointed evening, and I think you saw it all in a disjointed speech by Biden. It’s got a whole bunch of elements in it, themes that don’t quite mesh. And I think it shows that they’re having trouble trying to figure out how to run against McCain and what the idea is, which is quite ironic, given that Obama is where he is for the first half of this year the other Democrats weren’t able to get a handle on how to run against him.
You saw in Biden’s speech a whole bunch of ideas with the you know, we’re the ordinary guy who grew up in Scranton, the party of Everyman. Well that doesn’t help a lot with everybody, that’s an old idea and it doesn’t win a lot of votes. Then he moved on to try to building up Obama, which is, as Nina indicated, is a little bit hard to do because his history is so thin. Obama will have to do that on his own tomorrow night. Surrogates are really unable to do it; it’s extremely unconvincing.
And then you ended up with a two pronged attack on McCain. As Bill (Kristol) indicated, it is an attack on McCain, a frontal attack on judgment and even an implication of character, which I think is going to be hard ultimately to carry off. Because he is a man America knows and respects and knows ultimately is a maverick. The other element of the attack is the other theme, which is McCain as the Bush heir and that’s why you heard the refrain from uh the Biden saying not change, more of the same and you had the effect that I find rather creepy, the audience holding up signs with slogans like you do in Pyongyang, which read “Not Change, More of the Same.”
So the Democrats are having trouble understanding how they’re going to succeed in pretending that McCain and Bush are twins as was indicated last night. Or are they going to run against the McCain as a person, which I think is going to be harder to do. And they’re worried and somewhat muddled, I think.

HUME: Charles, let me ask you this. As a…compared to what we heard last night from Hillary Clinton, how would you assess the evening as a whole? Bill Clinton’s speech, followed by Obama’s, the drama on the floor when the nomination was made by acclimation and all of that. Your thoughts on that?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, it was a remarkable evening but again, of the many parts. Five hours ago, it was a moment of truly historic proportion and moving evening in which the first African American ascends to such a high and lofty position in American history. Within minutes it becomes again a street fight and the best of all, the ex-President shows up and shows everyone what a pro he is. It was like watching Mohammed Ali come out of retirement. He just is ultimately smooth, elegant. I mean, he’s a guy who can fake sincerity as no one else in history has and was extremely convincing. And the way he shaped and framed the argument as the loss of the American Dream in one hand at home, and respect at home, was a very sharp and defined way to do it. Then you had the Biden speech, which I thought was mediocre, workmanlike and of course it ended up with Obama’s appearance which is now a traditional, the nominee just gives a hint on the fine…on the evening before his speech as Clinton had done in 1992, when he made the famous walk up the streets of New York into the convention at Madison Square Garden. And of course I think it’s really all going to hinge on tomorrow. Because it is about Obama, it is about who is he, and can America accept him as President. And that’s what’s really at stake. All of this is a prelude in terms of the general election for the Democrats
 

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

“She’s got to [prove her patriotism]! She’s a Democrat. She must prove she loves America, as opposed to Republicans who everyone knooows love America. They just hate half the people living in it.”

Of course Karl Rove disagrees, writing in the Wall Street Journal that Michelle “could have done better ‘on saying I love America.’”

Maria.Maria: Ann Richards’ daughter Cecile, President of Planned Parenthood, speaks at the DNC…

Reed writes: “Why didn’t the emergency NATO meeting in Brussels do a three-for-one sale and tell USA to get the hell out of Iraq and Afganistan, and take their sad Canadian flunkies with them?”

Princess Sparkle Pony:  Reviews of the DNC set and the Big Tent.

Scholars and Rogues:  Art on the street in Denver

Guest posted by Blue Gal.

Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. Other officials said Mr. Khalilzad had planned to meet with Mr. Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation in Dubai, in a session that was canceled only after Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, learned from Mr. Zardari himself that the ambassador was providing “advice and help.” “Can I ask what sort of ‘advice and help’ you are providing?” Mr. Boucher wrote in an angry e-mail message to Mr. Khalilzad. “What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personnel?” Copies of the message were sent to others at the highest levels of the State Department; the message was provided to The New York Times by an administration official who had received a copy.

A senior American official said that Mr. Khalilzad had been advised to “stop speaking freely” to Mr. Zardari, and that it was not clear whether he would face any disciplinary action.

State and White House officials from Negroponte on down are said to be furious with Khalilzhad for his planned vaction with Zardari and his unofficial contacts at a time when the US wants to be seen as neutral in the Pakistani presidential race. Zalmay is an old political hand who knows the rules and White House plans but decided to break them anyway. Why?

Well, maybe its just that, like other neocons, Khalilzhad doesn’t think the rules apply to him. The founding PNAC member certainly didn’t mind interfering in Afghan elections to get his old buddy Karzai elected (although that was probably on White House orders). Maybe he felt he could do the same for his new friend Zardari with impunity.

But the worrying element is that there have been rumors for a while that Khalilzhad, who is Afghan born, has his sights on the Afghani presidency himself. While Karzai has been confrontational with Pakistan about its ISI intelligence agency and their support for the Taliban (something Zardari has been helpless to do anything about). He’s also allied himself strongly with India in response to Pakistani treatment of Afghanistan -something that led to the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul recently, carried out by ISI proxies.

If Khalilzhad does have his sights on the presidency, then he could be a very different matter. Despite his neocon credentials he was an early and staunch supporter of the Taliban - chaperoning their officials to a Unocal Oil party in their honor and declaring in a 1996 WaPo op-ed that “The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran.” He went on to say that the Taliban’s brand of Islam was more akin to that of Saudi Arabia…

Zardari is by some accounts quite unstable and paranoid - if an alliance with the ambassador would definitely appeal to the highly corrupt Pakistani politico. He might think that he would thereby get U.S. protection, just like Musharraf did, by default even if the Bush administration didn’t originally intend to extend it. Kalilzhad might be thinking that Zardari can leverage him into power. India, I’m sure, has thought of all this already and will have been burning up the phones to the White House since the story broke, demanding to know what the runaway ambassador thinks he was doing.

The message Tuesday night couldn’t have been clearer: The time has come to put the primaries behind us and support the Democratic nominee for President. As Senator Clinton makes abundantly clear, our country simply cannot afford “four more years of the last eight years.”

 Download | Play   Download | Play

Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend. He has served our country with honor and courage. But we don’t need four more years . . . of the last eight years.

More economic stagnation …and less affordable health care.

More high gas prices …and less alternative energy.

More jobs getting shipped overseas …and fewer jobs created here.

More skyrocketing debt …home foreclosures …and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families.

More war . . . less diplomacy.

More of a government where the privileged come first …and everyone else comes last.

John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn’t think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it’s okay when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.

With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.

Hillary did everything she came to do Tuesday night, and she did it with sincerity and style. She acknowledged her incredible, historic run and many diehard supporters, while drawing a clear contrast between the policies of Obama/Clinton and those of Bush/McCain. She came to convincingly make the case to all her holdouts that Obama is the only candidate in this race who will fight for their values. And she succeeded wildly. Bravo.

Full transcript below:

via HuffPo

Below is the text as prepared for Hillary Clinton’s’ speech at the 2008 Democratic Convention.

—–

I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.

My friends, it is time to take back the country we love.

Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines.

This is a fight for the future. And it’s a fight we must win.

I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family, and fighting for women’s rights at home and around the world . . . to see another Republican in the White House squander the promise of our country and the hopes of our people.

And you haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership.

No way. No how. No McCain.

Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our President.

Tonight we need to remember what a Presidential election is really about. When the polls have closed, and the ads are finally off the air, it comes down to you — the American people, your lives, and your children’s futures.

For me, it’s been a privilege to meet you in your homes, your workplaces, and your communities. Your stories reminded me everyday that America’s greatness is bound up in the lives of the American people — your hard work, your devotion to duty, your love for your children, and your determination to keep going, often in the face of enormous obstacles.

You taught me so much, you made me laugh, and . . . you even made me cry. You allowed me to become part of your lives. And you became part of mine.

I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism, didn’t have health insurance and discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head painted with my name on it and asked me to fight for health care.

I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps t-shirt who waited months for medical care and said to me: “Take care of my buddies; a lot of them are still over there….and then will you please help take care of me?”

I will always remember the boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage and that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn’t know what his family was going to do.

I will always be grateful to everyone from all fifty states, Puerto Rico and the territories, who joined our campaign on behalf of all those people left out and left behind by the Bush Administrtation.

To my supporters, my champions — my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits - from the bottom of my heart: Thank you.

You never gave in. You never gave up. And together we made history.

Along the way, America lost two great Democratic champions who would have been here with us tonight. One of our finest young leaders, Arkansas Democratic Party Chair, Bill Gwatney, who believed with all his heart that America and the South could be and should be Democratic from top to bottom.

And Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a dear friend to many of us, a loving mother and courageous leader who never gave up her quest to make America fairer and smarter, stronger and better. Steadfast in her beliefs, a fighter of uncommon grace, she was an inspiration to me and to us all.

Our heart goes out to Stephanie’s son, Mervyn, Jr, and Bill’s wife, Rebecca, who traveled to Denver to join us at our convention.

Bill and Stephanie knew that after eight years of George Bush, people are hurting at home, and our standing has eroded around the world. We have a lot of work ahead.

Jobs lost, houses gone, falling wages, rising prices. The Supreme Court in a right-wing headlock and our government in partisan gridlock. The biggest deficit in our nation’s history. Money borrowed from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis.

Putin and Georgia, Iraq and Iran.

I ran for President to renew the promise of America. To rebuild the middle class and sustain the American Dream, to provide the opportunity to work hard and have that work rewarded, to save for college, a home and retirement, to afford the gas and groceries and still have a little left over each month.

To promote a clean energy economy that will create millions of green collar jobs.

To create a health care system that is universal, high quality, and affordable so that parents no longer have to choose between care for themselves or their children or be stuck in dead end jobs simply to keep their insurance.

To create a world class education system and make college affordable again.

To fight for an America defined by deep and meaningful equality - from civil rights to labor rights, from women’s rights to gay rights, from ending discrimination to promoting unionization to providing help for the most important job there is: caring for our families. To help every child live up to his or her God-given potential.

To make America once again a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.

To bring fiscal sanity back to Washington and make our government an instrument of the public good, not of private plunder.

To restore America’s standing in the world, to end the war in Iraq, bring our troops home and honor their service by caring for our veterans.

And to join with our allies to confront our shared challenges, from poverty and genocide to terrorism and global warming.

Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years.

Those are the reasons I ran for President. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism that has enabled generations before us to meet our toughest challenges. Leaders who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America.

This won’t be easy. Progress never is. But it will be impossible if we don’t fight to put a Democrat in the White House.

We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a President who understands that America can’t compete in a global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a President who understands that we can’t solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that will build a green economy.

We need a President who understands that the genius of America has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class.

Barack Obama began his career fighting for workers displaced by the global economy. He built his campaign on a fundamental belief that change in this country must start from the ground up, not the top down. He knows government must be about “We the people” not “We the favored few.”

And when Barack Obama is in the White House, he’ll revitalize our economy, defend the working people of America, and meet the global challenges of our time. Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, President Clinton and the Democrats did it before. And President Obama and the Democrats will do it again.

He’ll transform our energy agenda by creating millions of green jobs and building a new, clean energy future. He’ll make sure that middle class families get the tax relief they deserve. And I can’t wait to watch Barack Obama sign a health care plan into law that covers every single American.

Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq responsibly and bring our troops home - a first step to repairing our alliances around the world.

And he will have with him a terrific partner in Michelle Obama. Anyone who saw Michelle’s speech last night knows she will be a great First Lady for America.

Americans are also fortunate that Joe Biden will be at Barack Obama’s side. He is a strong leader and a good man. He understands both the economic stresses here at home and the strategic challenges abroad. He is pragmatic, tough, and wise. And, of course, Joe will be supported by his wonderful wife, Jill.

They will be a great team for our country.

Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend.

He has served our country with honor and courage.

But we don’t need four more years . . . of the last eight years.

More economic stagnation …and less affordable health care.

More high gas prices …and less alternative energy.

More jobs getting shipped overseas …and fewer jobs created here.

More skyrocketing debt …home foreclosures …and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families.

More war . . . less diplomacy.

More of a government where the privileged come first …and everyone else comes last.

John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn’t think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it’s okay when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.

With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.

America is still around after 232 years because we have risen to the challenge of every new time, changing to be faithful to our values of equal opportunity for all and the common good.

And I know what that can mean for every man, woman, and child in America. I’m a United States Senator because in 1848 a group of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights, to participate in the first convention on women’s rights in our history.

And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last 72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter - and a few sons and grandsons along the way.

These women and men looked into their daughters’ eyes, imagined a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To rally and picket. To endure ridicule and harassment. To brave violence and jail.

And after so many decades - 88 years ago on this very day - the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote would be forever enshrined in our Constitution.

My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for President.

This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.

How do we give this country back to them?

By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.

And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they’re shouting after you, keep going.

Don’t ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going.

I’ve seen it in you. I’ve seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and union workers, the men and women of our military - you always keep going.

We are Americans. We’re not big on quitting.

But remember, before we can keep going, we have to get going by electing Barack Obama president.

We don’t have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.

Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance.

I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come election day. And think about the choices your parents and grandparents made that had such a big impact on your life and on the life of our nation.

We’ve got to ensure that the choice we make in this election honors the sacrifices of all who came before us, and will fill the lives of our children with possibility and hope.

That is our duty, to build that bright future, and to teach our children that in America there is no chasm too deep, no barrier too great - and no ceiling too high - for all who work hard, never back down, always keep going, have faith in God, in our country, and in each other.

Thank you so much. God bless America and Godspeed to you all.