Clinton on Obama-McCain

Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic Convention was a masterful reminder of the talent the man still has to boil complex issues down to elegantly simple terms that anyone can understand. Greg Sargent of TalkingPointsMemo comments on a key section.

"The choice is clear. 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.

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 which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented."

Note Bill's formulation on the patriotism question: "He loves our country every bit as much as we all do." That's not a defensive formulation. It's not: "We do love our country as much as he does." Rather, it starts from the premise that Dems are patriotic.

Bill also leads people through what they've heard about McCain -- he's made terrible sacrifices on behalf of his country; he has shown signs of unorthodoxy -- to the conclusion that there are big choices lurking beyond those character issues: What to do about the economy, and how to relate to the rest of the world. Once the character issues are taken off the table, the choice on the bigger issues is clear: Between the party that made a hash of things on these big questions, and the one that has succeeded on them.

--Ballard Burgher