You don't have to believe that the weekly column is an obsolete form to feel the digital imperative—especially if, like me, you used to blog every day as I did five years ago for Salon.com, my other home.

So now I'm on the blog again, live from the Democratic National Convention, and I'll be posting regularly from today forward.

(Evidently I miss being flamed on a daily basis...)

As the Democrats convene in Denver to celebrate Hillary Clinton and nominate Barack Obama, a minority of her supporters continues to behave petulantly. They whine, they bluster, they agitate themselves and each other. But what is it about Senator Clinton's repeated endorsements of her former opponent that they cannot understand? How do they honor her by undermining him?

No doubt many of her friends still feel robbed, months after her gracious concession. With considerable justification, they believe that their woman ought to be accepting the nomination of their party this week, rather than the man who took it from her. She certainly possesses the talent and experience to be a formidable national candidate, and during her life in politics she has worked very hard to earn that prize.  read more »

One of the very best political documentary films of the year -- and one that is terribly relevant to this election campaign -- is about a man who died in 1991. Here at the Impact Film Festival I just saw Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, a powerful and strangely moving account of how sewer tactics became business as usual in the modern Republican Party. Avoiding the didactic tone of too many political films, director Stefan Forbes has created a fascinating biopic about the charismatic, contradictory, deeply warped figure whose remorseless attitude toward truth and decency lives on (in the persons of Karl Rove and Steve Schmidt) long after his sad demise from brain cancer.  read more »

''We're not going to take that crap!'' cried Susan Rice, the Obama foreign policy adviser and former Clinton White House national security staffer.

What they won't take are those Republican insinuations about Obama's fortitude and patriotism.

Instead, she vowed that the Democratic campaign will force the G.O.P. to answer for ''John McCain's bad judgment.''

Her promise drew an appreciative roar from a big, very patriotic crowd listening to Rice at the Vote Vets/National Security Network reception at the Denver Athletic Club this afternoon, which attracted former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.).

What was missing from Hillary Clinton's otherwise boffo speech last night? She neglected to mention much of anything about the nominee, including why he is ready for the job and will do it well.

Her husband is even less likely to make the case for Obama because they scarcely know each other. And aside from a few perfunctory phone conversations, Obama has done little to improve their relationship.

Indeed, friends of the former president say that the Illinois Senator made matters worse when he rebuffed an invitation to visit Clinton in Chappaqua. It seems obvious that Obama will need his help, between now and November and even more if and when he wins.

Perhaps Obama has realized that pushing Clinton away is the same mistake Al Gore made, for very different reasons. The two sides are now discussing a visit to Clinton's Harlem office sometime soon.

The cliché question of the day is whether Bill Clinton's speech this evening will somehow overshadow Hillary's uplifting call to unity last night.

But that question misunderstands the his-and-hers moment. Their speeches will follow a pattern, logical if not seamless.

She spoke about the imperative to elect a Democratic president; he will talk about what a Democratic president can do.

The latter is a topic that permits him to discuss the achievements of his eight years in office as well as the promise of an Obama administration. The idea is to lend sinew and substance to what many Clintonites worried—until Senator Clinton spoke—would be a wispy, issue-free convention.

To follow Bill Clinton as a speaker is almost impossible on any occasion, let alone after a speech as strong and stunning as his endorsement of Barack Obama.

But the speech delivered so doggedly by John Kerry—as the cable anchors talked over him—was analytically sharp and politically compelling. He gave himself the satisfaction of denouncing Karl Rove by name for the Swiftboat smears. More important, however, was his enunciation of the failures of Republican foreign and security policies—and how the Bush administration has tardily come round to the use of diplomacy with North Korea and Iran. Which happens to be the same approach favored by Obama. That photo op of Michelle with Obama's World War II uncle, who looks like he came straight from the VFW hall, wasn't bad either. Nice of the Obama team to give Kerry that moment.

The strength of Barack Obama's acceptance speech lay not in its eloquence but in the candidate's determination to answer, methodically and clearly, the remaining doubts about him.

Woven into the theme of America's promise, Obama methodically answered the hard questions. Is he an exotic elitist, remote from the concerns and values of the sinking American middle class? No, he was raised by middle-class Americans who had their own ups and downs and taught him those same values. Is he too diffident to fight for victory in a harsh election? No, he told the Republicans to bring it. He directly confronted insinuations about his patriotism, then refuted their claims about John McCain's judgment, experience, and independence (and hung Bush around McCain's neck).  read more »

My old friend Sidney Blumenthal, whose Republican friends sometimes tell him more than they should, has an intriguing
] post up at Arianna's place. Sid says Mc Cain's choice of Palin was motivated largely by continued feuding with Karl Rove. Which speaks well of McCain, I suppose, but is still a poor way to pick a vice president. McCain wanted Lieberman but Karl had hi own ideas. Read it.
Joe Conason

Families deserve privacy about family matters, but families that want absolute privacy should probably stay out of politics. Sooner or later someone would have noticed the pregnancy of Bristol Palin, 17-year-old daughter of John McCain’s vice presidential pick, especially since everyone in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, seemed to know already. The question that remains is what, if anything, her plight may portend for the rest of us.

With all due respect to this young woman, her future husband and the rest of the family—and best wishes to all of them for a successful birth—let us first stop pretending that this is good news.  read more »