A right-er gets it right

Here's President Clinton last night at the Democratic Convention:

[In 1992] We prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief. <...> Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

Sometimes the political right can get it right. Here's Peggy Noonan, President Reagan's speechwriter, writing this morning in the Wall Street Journal:

This was Deft Political Pro Bill doing what no one had been able to do up to this point at the convention, and that is make the case for Barack Obama. He lambasted the foe, asserted Obama's growth on the trail, argued that he was the right man for the job and did that as a man who once held that job and is remembered, at least in terms of domestic policy and at least by half the country, as having done it pretty darn well.

Here's an excerpt from Senator Hillary Clinton on Tuesday evening:

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? <...Or> Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible? <...>

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

Here are Noonan's comments on that Tuesday speech, and on Hillary's stunningly gracious suspension of the roll call vote yesterday:

The Hillary speech was the best of her career. Toward Obama she was exactly as gracious as she is capable of being. <...> she proved herself the most gifted pol on the prompter in current political history.

The decision to put Obama over the top and ask for acclamation? Masterly. Mrs. Clinton's actions this week have been pivotal not only for Obama, but for her.

She showed herself capable of appearing to put party first. <...> And that, for her, is a brilliant move. Really: brilliant. Here's one reason: Teddy [Kennedy] is, throughout his party, beloved. Beloved would be something very new for Hillary.

And, Noonan on Senator Kennedy, ill with cancer, showing grit and grace on Tuesday:

[Ted Kennedy's speech] was a small masterpiece of generosity. Not only that he showed up, not only that he spoke, but that with every right to speak of himself and his career, with every right to speak about his family and his memories and the lessons he's learned and the great things he's seen, with all the right to dwell on those things he produced: a speech about Barack Obama. Telling America to vote for him. How classy was that? Very.

In his speech last evening, President Clinton delivered a powerful rhetorical construction (worthy of Noonan, by the way). It may have been a denunciation of Bush/Cheney's go-it-alone international calamity of the last 8 years, and, ironically, it may have been a personal excoriation. But it offered a sense of hope and, yes, change, for the next 4, if not 8 years.

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

I'll finish with the finish from HRC's speech:

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going. This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.<...>

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.