Clinton delivers

Hillary Clinton “fell on her sword” for the Democratic Party and Barack Obama, said Rochelle Riley in the Detroit Free Press, and they owe her “in four, or eight years.” Her speech before the Democratic National Convention was “in a word, presidential.” But by “truly giving in and deferring her dream” of being president so that her party could unite behind a different dream—the first African-American president—she’s giving Obama the chance he needs.

Clinton’s speech “was so NOT what Barack Obama needed,” said Craig Crawford in CQ’s Trail Mix blog. Sure, she sounded all the right notes about unity and said Obama’s name a few times, but it was “an obligatory, boiler-plate endorsement” that said nothing about Obama's personal character and, worse, did nothing to “clean up Clinton’s earlier dismissal of Obama’s readiness to be commander in chief.”

Well, “imagine how excruciating this moment must be,” said Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog. “Clinton is like a jilted fiancee who not only has to go to her ex’s wedding—she has to toast the new bride.” It is to her immense credit that she gave her toast “without a hitch,” and without betraying any sign of unhappiness.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Maybe it helped that her speech wasn’t really about Obama, said Ezra Klein in The American Prospect. “It was a speech about being a Democrat, and what electing a Democrat will mean for the country.” She told her supporters that “her candidacy was about something, not someone.”

Hillary said Obama deserves to be president because he's in the same party as Bill Clinton, said Rich Lowry in National Review Online's The Corner blog. She didn't say a word that was "incompatible with what she'll want to say if Obama loses in November: 'Told you so.'"

Clinton said all the right things, said David Callaway in MarketWatch. The question is, how much will she now do to put her words into action?