Oh, Bill. You Make It Hard To Hate You.

So, first off, why didn't John Kerry give speeches like that four years ago?  He'd be running for reelection right now if he had...

Second, I had the most amazing hamburger of my life today.  At the Capital Grille, they took sirloin steak, bacon, and sweet grilled onions and ground them all up into the most delicious patty I've ever eaten.  Mmmm.

Third, Bill Clinton is an animal.  I'm watching a replay of his speech right now on MSNBC, and you can't really tell how much energy there was in that room.  I mean, sure, it takes him a good five minutes to get everyone seated, and yeah, they're all chanting "Bill" so loud you can't hear him say "thank you."  But the energy in the room when he came out was unreal.  It was unlike anything I have ever seen before in my life.  And when he said that he came to support Barack, the place exploded.

But he was great.  I can't describe how great he was, you just have to watch it.  He hit every point he needed to make, and even though people were screaming so loud I couldn't hear most of the speech I'm confident he didn't say anything bad.  He was really good.

Now back into my narrative.  We went downtown for lunch, I ate my dank burger, and we went to pick up our credentials.  On the way to the Convention, we went to a reception at the Cru Wine Bar hosted by J-Street, the pro-Israel pro-peace PAC I wrote about the other day.  It was interesting, and I met some cool people, including Dennis Schulman, a blind progressive rabbi running for the House in New Jersey.  He was fascinating, and I learned that I'll be attending school with his daughter next year.

However, we were 18, couldn't partake in the wine, and lacked the business cards that people were handing out like corndogs at a Funk Music Appreciation club fundraiser.  That, by the way, is more of a SAMOHI joke than anything else, so don't worry if it's not funny.  It's mainly for a few low-key Funkers.  We didn't have any of the social currency that you need to fit in at a lobbyist party, so after a few nice interactions we left to go to the Convention.  On the way, we ran into a protest, tried to talk some sense into the "pro-life" demonstrators, and eventually just gave up and went inside.  

Inside, we managed to get some pretty bad seats, which in itself was a miracle because if we showed up 30 minutes later we should have had horrible seats.  How horrible?  Behind the stage.  Which is different from backstage, by a lot.  So we settled in to our seats and waited for Bill.  He was so good, by the way, that I neglected to check the Phillies' score until after they had blown a 3-1 lead and lost to the hated Mets.

Then came Joe.  He was good, and I felt he got better as the night went on, but at the beginning of his speech he was clearly nervous and the audience noticed.  The woman next to me kept tsk tsk-ing until I wanted to ask her to stop.  But before I mustered up that courage, Biden started to catch fire and build up steam.  From then on she was quiet and the rest of the crowd was really loud.  I, for one, was waving my little American flag so hard I almost (accidentally) smacked her.  But by then I was so filled with Democratic pride that I would have felt really guilty.

Then there was the big surprise:  Obama came out and gave a little pep talk, which I have on video from a horrible angle.  But it really shows you how the crowd loved it, something that I've been told wasn't apparent on TV.  I'll post it later, right now I want to go to bed.

Which reminds me, tomorrow I might now be able to post-- my computer is leaving with its owner on the morning plane to Smith College.  So if I can post, it will be without little links and without pictures.  Which is unfortunate.  Luckily, since I'm too tired to add any of those now, this post can serve as practice for the stripped down version of the blog.

peace

PS- There's more I want to say about tonight but I'm too tired to.  

PPS- I ate dinner at Applebee's tonight.  I'd never eaten there before, and it was pretty good.  We got there too late for the real menu though, so I just had to chill on some buffalo wings and spinach dip.  The leftovers are actually in the hotel fridge right now, so I'll let you know next time I blog how leftover Applebee's chicken tastes cold.