Reaction To Last Night

by Steve Soto

For what it's worth, I thought the speech was pretty damn good. Hillary's delivery and the words themselves comprised the best speech I've seen her give. The immediate reaction from the media on the ground in Denver appeared to be mostly very positive, even from some parts of the media that have been unfair and overly critical of Clinton and her campaign.

Here's a sampling of what has been written about the speech:

The expected rapid response from the McCain campaign pointed out that Hillary didn't make the case that Obama was ready to be commander in chief. Interestingly, Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford and the AP's Ron Fournier took their notes from the McCain campaign and wrote the same critiques of Hillary's speech hours later. I knew Fournier and the AP are now in the GOP's pocket, but with this piece from Crawford, he appears to be in their back pocket also. If you go back to McCain's 2000 speech in support of Bush at the GOP convention to see how McCain met the Crawford test of touting Bush's "personal character, judgment and skill", you can see from McCain's remarks that he didn't exactly meet this test either. It apparently escapes Crawford's notice that both Obama and Biden have that job over the next two nights, as it should be.

The Washington Post runs a Page One today telling us that no matter how good Hillary’s speech was, her supporters are still bitter. And the proof of this is . . . . quotes from two crazy delegates from Texas and Oklahoma out of the thousands at the convention.

The Los Angeles Times gives Hillary’s speech a thumbs up.

The NYT decided to spin her speech as being more about 2012 than anything else.

A NYT analysis points out that Obama is having a tough time getting an economic message through this week because . . . no matter what success the party is having with unity between the two camps, all the reporters care to ask about is the alleged ongoing war between the two camps.