In case there isn't enough talk about celebrity in America, here's some extra fare from England. And it¹s not about Obama, or Paris, or Britney. It's about Kate Moss.

Today the British Museum announced that 'Siren,' a nearly $2.8 million, 110-pound solid gold statue of Kate will grace the Greek sculpture collection. The sculptor, Mark Quinn, says it¹s the largest gold statue made since the time of ancient Egypt.

I wonder if the Obama artists are getting any ideas ....

If were a man of means and could fund a 527, I would devote extraordinary resources to ensure that Al Gore could drone on endlessly in highly public settings about the climate crisis while supporting Democrats and positing that Barack Obama is the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln.

Alas, I am not a man of means. Thus, sadly, Al Gore’s opportunities to remind America about everything wrong with the Democratic party will be limited to his just completed speech.

I would be remiss if I failed to note that to these eyes the night is unfolding extremely well for the Democrats, Al Gore’s dreary whining about the polar ice bears notwithstanding.

The set at Invesco which people have been talking about is even worse in person. Because while it's clearly striving for grandiosity, it doesn't achieve it. Instead of evoking the Acropolis or the Lincoln Memorial, it looks like a side entrance to Caesar's Palace in Vegas.

Of course, it may look different under the lights and/or on TV.

And lord I hate to say it, but watching the pre-ordination proceedings at Invesco, they are indeed impressive. Chris Wallace just said it feels like history in the making. I'm not sure I would go that far, but it does feel like something biggger than (not to mention different from) a pedestrian presidential campaign.

When you think about it, the situation's a little ironic. Being something more than a garden-variety presidential candidate has always been Obama's biggest strenght. But appearing detached from the mudane and earthly concerns of we mere mortals has also become his greatest weakness. Tonight, the Obama campaign has selected a venue that emphasizes both the revolutionary nature of Obama 's quest as well as its grating grandiosity.

Which theme ultimately defines the evening will determine whether the event is a success or a campaign-defining bust.

Jonathan Beecher Field, an Obama supporter and English professor at Clemson, has written a devastating op-ed at InsideHigherEd.com on the subject of Joe Biden's plagiarism. The article concludes that Biden's plagiarism "suggests something of Biden’s character, indeed, in a realm more relevant to doing his job than was John Edwards’s philandering to his." While Biden's plagiarism of a speech by the British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock is fairly well-known, the professor notes that Biden's plagiarism in law school is more troubling. This E.J. Dionne article from 1987 examines the depth of Biden's dishonesty:

The file distributed by the Senator [in response to reports of his plagiarism] included a law school faculty report, dated Dec. 1, 1965, that concluded that Mr. Biden had ''used five pages from a published law review article without quotation or attribution'' and that he ought to be failed in the legal methods course for which he had submitted the 15-page paper.

The plagiarized article, ''Tortious Acts as a Basis for Jurisdiction in Products Liability Cases,'' was published in the Fordham Law Review of May 1965. Mr. Biden drew large chunks of heavy legal prose directly from it, including such sentences as: ''The trend of judicial opinion in various jurisdictions has been that the breach of an implied warranty of fitness is actionable without privity, because it is a tortious wrong upon which suit may be brought by a non-contracting party.''...

In his paper, Mr. Biden included a single footnote to the Fordham Law Review article.

In a letter defending himself, dated Nov. 30, 1965, Mr. Biden pleaded with the faculty not to dismiss him from the school.

''My intent was not to deceive anyone,'' Mr. Biden wrote. ''For if it were, I would not have been so blatant.''

At another point, the young Mr. Biden said that ''if I had intended to cheat, would I have been so stupid?'''

Good question. How could a guy who told a constituent that he graduated in the top half of his law school class and had a "much higher IQ than you" intentionally do something so stupid?

Dionne's report provides some clues:

The faculty ruled that Mr. Biden would get an F in the course but would have the grade stricken when he retook it the next year. Mr. Biden eventually received a grade of 80 in the course, which, he joked today, prevented him from falling even further in his class rank. Mr. Biden, who graduated from the law school in 1968, was 76th in a class of 85.

The file also included Mr. Biden's transcript from his days as an undergraduate at the University of Delaware. In his first three semesters, his grades were C's or D's, with three exceptions: two A's in physical education courses, a B in a course on ''Great English Writers'' and an F in R.O.T.C. The grades improved somewhat later but were never exceptional.

A heartfelt congrats from McCain to Obama is scheduled to air during tonight's festivities:

Senator Charles Schumer of New York is the ur-Democrat, a loquacious and canny politician who, unlike many of his copartisans, is more than a little entertaining as he foils Republicans. He also has an ego the size of Alaska. This moment from Christopher Beam's excellent "Day in the Life of Lanny Davis" is priceless:

5:38 p.m.—Davis is still waiting for makeup when Sen. Chuck Schumer enters the room, entourage in tow. "Lanny!" he says. "What are you doing here?" Davis explains that they're going to be on O'Reilly together. Schumer's smile vanishes. He turns to Amy Sohnen, a heretofore cheery Fox News executive producer. "Absolutely not," Schumer says. Apparently there's been a mix-up. Schumer thought he was going to be appearing alone. Davis, sensing trouble, drifts over to the food table.
The senator storms out of the office to make a phone call. Outside in the hall, his spokesman is soft-yelling into his cell. It's unclear whether the objection is to Davis himself or appearing on-screen with someone of lesser stature than Schumer.
After a few minutes, Sohnen approaches Lanny. There's been a terrible mistake, she explains, and they can't have him on the show. "That's not an option," Davis says. He was the original guest, and he gave his permission for Schumer to join him. "I'm sorry. Unless Roger Ailes calls me personally, I'm doing the show."
6 p.m.—Set of The O'Reilly Factor. Schumer and Davis sit down with Bill O'Reilly at a table overlooking the convention floor. Apparently O'Reilly has been briefed on Schumer's tiff. "No one tells me what to do either, and I'm the star," O'Reilly says. "Now, siddown." They agree Schumer will speak first, and that he and Davis won't appear on-screen together.

Don't sweat the small stuff? Not if you're Chuck Schumer. Here's a profile of the man from The Weekly Standard last year.

Minneapolis
I’m sitting in the Xcel Energy Center watching the birth of a convention hall--a cacophony of hammers, drills and “testing one, two, three” suggests the Republican Convention is just days away.

The media presence in these halls is always impressive. Modern conventions are, after all, largely media events. AP, BBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, and Fox sky suites stand at various stages of completion--with technicians setting up cameras, cables, and video monitors. And right above the Thompson-Reuters and AP suites, the Al Jazeera Channel has a box too. It’s still dark--maybe they had a late night of pre-convention festivities?

All this led me to wonder who is watching the festivities. Nielsen’s new website contains some interesting data on viewership. No results are available yet on last night, but a couple highlights from days 1 and 2:

Almost 26 million people watched the second night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention--a 16% increase from 22.3 million viewers on the opening night of the convention.

Tuesday night’s speeches, which featured Senator Hillary Clinton’s much anticipated keynote address, continued to draw a large proportion of African Americans (12.7% of all African American viewers tuned in).

Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com highlights how African American watching of this week’s Democratic convention compares to the rest of the population:

African Americans continue to watch the convention in a higher proportion than the rest of the population (the African American rating, or percentage of the African American population watching, was 12.7 vs. a 9.0 for the population as a whole).

According to historical data on the Nielsen site, over a million more households watched the Republican Convention than the Democratic Convention in 2004. Democrats drew more viewers, however, in 2000.

Tonight’s Obama-Palooza at Invesco Field should smash all the old records--if for no other reason just to see if the Democratic nominee wears a toga to match the Greek columns.

HT: Pollster.com

From the Politico, “MSNBC Prez Defends Convention Team” by Michael Calderone

Things are getting ugly at MSNBC:

In addition to Olbermann, MSNBC personalities Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and David Shuster were involved in Denver controversies.

On Monday evening, Olbermann interrupted Scarborough while he was talking about McCain being competitive in the polls. “Jesus, Joe, why don’t you get a shovel?” Olbermann remarked.

On “Morning Joe” the following day, a clearly agitated Scarborough went off on Shuster during a discussion of Iraq, which quickly devolved over several cringe-worthy minutes into personal attacks, such as Scarborough telling the world how his colleague missed the show three times by oversleeping. "Are you Rip Van Shuster?” Scarborough asked. “Have you been sleeping for the past couple of months?”

But Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, became enraged when Shuster made a reference to “your party.” Asked by Scarborough what his party was, Shuster said he was an “independent.”

"I feel so comforted by the fact that you're an independent,” Scarborough said, in a mocking tone. “I bet everybody at MSNBC has independent on their voting cards. Oh, we're down the middle now.” (Shuster left the set, but returned later to hug it out, "Entourage"-style.)

This reminds me of a time when I was doing a story for this magazine on Larry Summers’ troubled tenure at Harvard and the left-wing professors who were trying to run him out of the Yard. After the story ran, I spoke with one of the liberal professors that I had interviewed and he expressed surprise that my story had a bias and wasn’t strictly neutral. I expressed surprise over his surprise. I make no bones about my biases, and any sentient reader of this magazine quickly notices a decided rightward tilt.

So I’d be among the last to complain about another news service showing bias. Indeed, I appreciate MSNBC’s willingness to wear its biases on its virtual sleeve, and find that dynamic far preferable to the shopworn biases that creep into someone like Wolf Blitzer’s coverage all while he maintains a phony pose of neutrality.

MSNBC remains an interesting case for other reasons. Until recently, it and its mother ship were respected news agencies. Now that they’re morphing into purveyors of opinion and propaganda, the respect is vanishing.

Just as I read the left wing blogs, I watch MSNBC. Keith Olbermann is the main man there, and right wingers who deny his talent sound as out of touch as left wingers who deny Rush Limbaugh’s talent. What’s more, Olbermann is hardly the only partisan on cable news. Sean Hannity brings a distinct viewpoint to his show, as does Glenn Beck. Not that anyone watches Beck, but it’s still worth noting.

But there’s something different about the Olbermann show. Unlike Hannity and Bill O’Reilly who will have guests from all over the political spectrum, Olbermann’s Countdown is an elaborately constructed echo-chamber. Virtually every guest agrees with the host’s sentiments. Rachel Maddow, one of Olbermann’s most frequent guests who is about to get her own MSNBC vehicle, is an engaging television presence but she and Olbermann concur on all matters. So Olbermann “interviewing” Maddow is a pointless exercise. A monologue (or “special comment”) would do just as well.

Olbermann’s show has become the television equivalent of a left wing blog where group-think dominates and dissenting views are most assuredly not welcome. It’s ironic - when people who don’t watch Fox criticize Fox, they have an idea in their head of something that looks a lot like Keith Olbermann’s show. But on Fox, unlike the changing MSNBC, all views are welcome.

If MSNBC continues in its current direction, it will lose all respect as a news organization. But that may be good business. Offering opinions is cheaper and more popular than gathering news. The issue going forward will be how long it takes before the act grows stale. Speaking just for myself, seeing people agree with each other for hours on end doesn’t make for particularly compelling television. Right now, Olbermann occupies a sweet spot where he reflects the distilled anger of the American left. But that anger will lessen with George Bush’s departure and perhaps vanish if Barack Obama wins.

It’s also tough to figure why Olbermann is unwilling to get it on with people with whom he has ideological differences. He’s a glib guy, sharp and quick on his feet. And I’m certain there are a lot of conservatives out there who wouldn’t mind appearing on his show to express the other side of things.

"This Greek Temple thing is going to cling to Obama like some Kerry spandex."

George F. Will: "[D]ecades hence, historians will write about today's response to Russia by the West, perhaps in obituaries for the idea of 'the West.' If Obama does not speak to this crisis Thursday night, that will speak volumes."

He's right, of course. As you listen to the assembled Democrats prattle on from the dais, you are struck at how few of them mention the crisis in Georgia and the challenge Russian autocracy and aggression poses to the international order. When they do mention it, their claims are often absurd. John Kerry actually had the audacity to say Obama's response to the Russian invasion was the exemplar of a "statesman of the twenty-first century." Does that mean twenty-first century statesmen will apportion blame equally between despots and democrats?

The most important line of the convention proceedings last night was Bill Clinton's statement to the American people that Barack Obama is ready to swear the oath to "protect and defend" the Constitution of the United States of America. That meant something, coming from a former commander-in-chief who has expressed doubts about Obama's readiness in the past. Obama's challenge tonight is to persuade the public that Clinton is right.

On MSNBC, Robert Gibbs held up a picture of George W. Bush giving his 2004 convention speech with white columns in the backdrop to show that their Greek temple setting for Obama's speech is perfectly appropriate:

Juan Williams's op-ed commentary throughout the campaign has been superb - passionate, informative, and incisive. His latest is not to be missed.

Thomas B. Edsall reports:

The Obama campaign has accelerated a transformation already underway in the Democratic electorate. 2008 appears likely to mark the death knell for what remained of the New Deal coalition - the coalition that was crucial to the early elections of such politicians as Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy.

In its place is a Democratic alliance that initially emerged during George McGovern's 1972 campaign, became competitive in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, and that now appears to be solidifying as the core of the party: a combination of "haves" -- socially liberal, well-educated whites, especially the young, and "have-nots" -- black and Hispanic minority voters.

The shattered New Deal coalition offers an opportunity for John McCain. Pew pollster Andrew Kohut points out that, compared with John Kerry in 2004, Obama is under-performing among the much discussed "working-class whites," while he is over-performing among young people, liberal professionals, and African Americans.

The question is, How many members of these groups can Obama bring to the polls on November 4? Edsall quotes polling analyst Nate Silver: "'For each 10 percent increase in African-American turnout, Obama gains approximately 13 electoral votes, and 1 percent in his popular vote margin against John McCain. Even a 10 percent increase is enough to take him from a slight underdog against McCain to a slight favorite, while at higher levels of turnout improvement, Obama becomes the strong favorite.'"

Remember hearing about all the new voters Obama would bring to the polls in places like Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania? Didn't happen. There are a lot of young people, liberal professionals, and African Americans in California. Obama lost there. This is not to say that Obama will lose California in the fall, of course. But the Obama campaign's promises of a wave of new voters that will put their candidate over the top have not been true in the past. Which is reason to be skeptical that they will prove true in the future.

Tony Campolo is a rare bird indeed--an evangelical Protestant who’s also a Democrat and pro-life. He was on the platform committee and worked on the plank dealing with abortion. At yesterday’s meeting of pro-life Democrats, Campolo was introduced as the committee member responsible for the new language endorsing the goal of “reducing abortion.” He said that he’d first proposed the term “abortion reduction,” but there was objection from the pro-abortion rights types who dominated the committee. So he countered with “reducing abortion.” Campolo said he didn’t know why abortion reduction was a problem for the pro-choicers since “reducing abortion” means the same thing. Campolo also talked about what he failed to get in the abortion plank, among other things a statement that abortion involves serious moral issues. He told the committee that both Obama and Clinton make this point when discussing abortion (Obama as recently as during his Saddleback Church joint appearance with McCain; listen closely tonight). After the meeting I caught up with Campolo and asked him why he thought the committee balked at including a statement already approved, you could say, by Obama and Clinton. His answer: The abortion rights advocates “thought that what we were trying to do was to make a negative judgment or condemnation of a woman’s decision to have an abortion.”

It's not a pretty picture. Michael Turton, who writes from Taichung, has the goods.

Republican strategist Mike Murphy on the visual language of tonight's Obama speech at Invesco field:

"I think the normally shrewd Obama campaign has a blind spot about tomorrows big speech at Invesco field. The Pepsi center is the visual “home” of this convention. Having Obama do his big finish in another venue screws up the visual vernacular of the convention. Turn off the sound, and watch the tape. In the end it will look like two different conventions; one visually dominated by Clintons, another by Obama. That is a message of separation, not unity. Also, ask any TV director: staging a TV mega-event outdoors is very tricky. Lots of things are hard to control. The whole Obama speaks to massive crowd thing is impressive, but done. We’ve seen it before. Finally, the Mount Olympus set looks problematical at best. An Obama staffer assured me it’ll look better tomorrow. For their sake, it better. They should have changed this up yesterday and moved to a more intimate man in the arena set up back in the Pepsi center. Obama is the nominee, he should own this house."

From the Wall Street Journal, “Economy Grew 3.3% in 2nd Quarter, Much Higher Than Initial Reading” by Jeff Bater and Brian Blackstone

Okay, lets’ get a couple of things straight. There have been two whopping dislocations in the economy over the past year or so. The decline in home values and the rise in fuel prices have hit the average American hard, and there’s nothing that the average American can do to make those things unhit them. They can’t just dump their houses, and they can’t ditch their cars. Politicians ignore these developments at their peril.

But every four years, the Democrats gather for their national convention and paint a portrait of an America right out of Dickens. If John Edwards had been allowed in Denver, he probably would have spoken about the woeful plight of pre-teen chimney sweeps. In other words, as the new economic data show, things are a bit more nuanced than the Democrats seem able to process.

One thing about our presidential elections in the mass information age – the most optimistic candidate always wins. Seriously. Take it all the way back to Kennedy if you care to. And that’s historically been one of the Democrats’ biggest shortcomings – they’re perennially down on America. Bill Clinton overcame this by being the Man from Hope. Barack Obama, back when his shtick was still fresh, also had the ability to show a faith in a better tomorrow. That’s what made him such a formidable candidate, before he bought into the dearly held Democratic view of American mediocrity. As we’ve seen again this week, the Democratic party is always a millstone around its nominee’s neck.

Not that the Republican party isn’t a millstone around Senator McCain’s neck, of course.

John Judis observes:

"After securing the nomination in June, Obama's first priority had to be healing the rift between himself and Hillary Clinton. Candidates who can't put nomination battles behind them well before the convention usually lose. Think of Goldwater in 1964, Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Walter Mondale in 1984. There are only two candidates I can remember who succeeded in overcoming intraparty rifts during the convention--John Kennedy in 1960 and Ronald Reagan in 1980--and they did it by nominating their primary opponents to be vice president."

This was highlighted again last night by Joe Biden's speech. It was typical Biden - long-winded, gaffe-ridden, melodramatic. It was not the speech of a man who has a large national constituency and is comfortable on a stage in front of tens of millions of viewers. Obama would have instantly healed any rifts in his party, and probably would also have a sizable lead over McCain right now, if he had picked Clinton instead. (And if he had to pick a Biden, he should have gone with the senator's son, Beau, the Delaware attorney general who has a record of military service and gave an excellent introduction to his father last night.)

Also, is it just a coincidence that the two most effective speeches of the convention so far - Bill and Hillary's - are the two speeches the Obama campaign had the least control over?

The progress of TradeSports/Intrade during the convention week illustrates just what a stellar show the Democrats have put on. Obama's now trading at an all-time low, McCain at an all-time high. Bring on Invesco!

HT: Ace

Joe Biden gave a speech in which—in contrast to Bill Clinton’s —Barack Obama is an actor. He makes choices and does important things from the time he is a young adult to the present. Instead of choosing Wall Street after college, he goes to Chicago, and he makes the lives of poor people the work of his life. Later, as a state senator, he fights for health care for parents and children in Illinois who don’t have it. “He got it done,” said Biden. When Obama arrives in the U.S. Senate, he hits the ground running. He fights for ethics reform. He reaches across party lines to pass a law to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. He moves Congress and the president to give our veterans better health care.

In truth, Biden didn’t have a lot to work with. Obama’s résumé is thin (just three accomplishments from his time in the Senate). But, in contrast to Clinton, Biden at least tried to present Obama in terms of what he’s done. Biden’s argument was that because he “got it done in the past, he can get it done in the future, the issues being much more important, of course. You can expect Biden to keep pitching Obama in this way. Just as you can expect him to continue to attack John McCain as directly as he did and in his strongest areas, foreign policy and national security.

By the way, Biden failed to bring up the little matter of the surge, on which Obama was wrong and McCain was right. This will surely draw a sharp response from the McCain campaign.

Our four day national nightmare is almost over. If we can just get through tonight! In the meantime, some thoughts on yesterday:

1) THE BIG HE - Everyone else went gaga over Bill Clinton. I didn’t, but then again objectivity when it comes to this particular political figure has never been my calling card. I guess since none of the speakers who preceded Clinton even bothered to make a case for Obama, the bar had been set low. Since Clinton actually put forth an argument about why specifically Barack Obama as opposed to any generic Democratic nominee should be president, he rallied the faithful.

At the risk of tamping down all the good Democratic feelings, the finishing coda of the speech where Clinton reminded everyone that his political foes had said in 1992 that he wasn’t ready was clearly a dig at Obama. If you compare the résumé of the 1992 Bill Clinton with the 2008 Barack Obama – well, there is no comparison. Clinton had been a longtime governor, an attorney general and a noted policy wonk who could talk with mind-numbing specificity on virtually every issue. Indeed, he did speak with mind-numbing specificity on virtually every issue. Obama, on the other hand, is a longtime community organizer, a former associate at a small law firm and a short-timer in the Senate with no accomplishments. His grasp of policy is questionable, his willingness to discuss policy non-existent. Bill Clinton must surely know that in any comparison between his 1992 self and the present day Barack Obama, Obama comes up a loser.

Even still…At the risk of letting the facts intrude on Clinton’s auto-hagiography, Bill Kristol rightly points out that in spite of having glittering credentials for such a young candidate, Clinton in fact wasn’t ready for the White House. I bet even Democrats of a certain vintage remember the series of Clinton pratfalls that paved the way for the Gingrich Revolution. So if a young fellow as prepared as Clinton was in fact ill-prepared for the task that awaited him in the Oval Office, what does that say about Obama?

I must, however, confess some pity for the former POTUS. Throughout his wife’s speech on Tuesday, Bill Clinton repeatedly mouthed the touching sentiment, “I love you.” Hillary didn’t return the favor last night – not once. It must cut like a knife to be so uxorious and not have your feelings reciprocated.

2) THE DEMOCRAT BIG TENT – During a chat with Chris Wallace, Howard Dean said, “We’re reaching out to Evangelicals and people like that.” I’m sure Evangelicals everywhere were touched by the gesture. Same thing for people like that.

3) HEY JOE – America learned last night what political junkies have long known – Joe Biden is a perfectly mediocre politician. As Mickey Kaus mordantly observed, Biden has longevity, not gravitas. His speech last night was pure Biden – he comes across as a decent guy, but not a particularly impressive one. Since he’s the one who’s supposed to add ballast to the meringue-like Obama juggernaut, he didn’t get the job done last night.

4) NOT ENOUGH RED MEAT? – If you read the lefty blogs, you know they share one common complaint- the convention hasn’t been mean enough to the Republicans. They all seem to want their anger expressed from the convention dais.

What they don’t understand is that anger is an unattractive thing. Going negative is one thing – going negative with anger is quite another. The angry left that somehow managed to see John Kerry’s speech last night lapped it up. It was an extended, bitter whine about swiftboating and the Bush administration. It was typically humorless and utterly unappealing. In other words, it was pure Kerry.

One of the reasons Barack Obama enjoyed such success is that he transcended the Democratic paradigm of seeking office through a combination of whining and grievance-mongering. Most of the country has no idea just how angry the angry left is. It would be to the Democrats good fortune if things remained that way.

In his speech last night, Bill Clinton said this:

“My fellow Democrats, sixteen years ago, you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.

Together, 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.”

But Clinton was too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief in 1992.

He was handed an enviable situation in foreign policy: 12 years of Reagan and Bush had resulted in victory without a shot in the Cold War, and the defeat of Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. Clinton then managed in his first two years to preside over an embarrassment in Haiti, a debacle in Somalia, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, and genocide in Rwanda. Over the rest of the decade, Clinton managed to allow further erosion in the position of American strength he inherited.

Clinton didn’t, as he now claims, lead us “to a new era of peace.” He inherited a hard-won peace, failed to lead, and part of his legacy is 9/11. It was understandable (if unfortunate) that in 1992, after the end of the Cold War, the American people would think they could afford a president who would fatuously think it enough to claim to be “on the right side of history” (whatever that means), rather than being willing to make tough decisions. I doubt Americans are so complacent today.

The latest from Fred Kagan, current as of 12:30 A.M.:

* The deployment of NATO warships to the Black Sea has definitely gotten Moscow’s attention, drawing a combination of bravado, threats, and shrugs from the Russian military. The key issue is most likely that Russia cannot match the naval buildup it sees coming in the Black Sea with its own vessels, at least not in a timely fashion. Moscow is reacting as though it has confidence that NATO ships will not do anything but sail around for a few weeks and leave, but it is manifesting its discomfort at the demonstration that it does not control the Black Sea.
* Russia continues to accuse Georgia of planning to re-attack South Ossetia, and has served notice that any American attempt to rearm Georgia to pre-war levels will be seen as American encouragement for such an attack.
* Russia is expanding its peacekeeping perimeter, but refuses to define its “security zone” with any precision. It acknowledges the presence of Russian forces in Poti, but obfuscates the basis and nature of that presence. Russian forces are cleansing South Ossetia of Georgians, but the evidence in the MoD releases is naturally oblique, and I will return to this issue in subsequent updates.
* Moscow is exerting a combination of pressures and promises on Ukraine, holding out the possibility of continued military-industrial collaboration but denouncing Ukrainian haggling over the Black Sea Fleet’s presence in Sevastopol. In general terms, the tenor of Moscow’s messages to Ukraine appears to be calming from its initial flurry of indignation. On the other hand, the Russians ostentatiously sortied the Black Sea Fleet flagship from Sevastopol, giving the Ukrainians no notice and initially offering a false explanation of its destination and the purpose of its mission. Moscow has thereby served notice that it will not respect President Yushchenko’s demands for notification of planned sorties, their destinations, and their purposes.
* Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, China, and the Czech Republic have all been singled out in MoD releases for supporting Russia either by offering humanitarian aid to South Ossetia or by considering sending military advisors there under the auspices of the OSCE.
* The General Staff also announced that it is reviewing the experience of this conflict for lessons for Russian military modernization, particularly in the areas of suppressing enemy air defenses and in information operations.
* Strong evidence suggests that Moscow still aims to encourage the Georgians to remove Saakashvili from power and will continue to exert various forms of leverage, including the occupation of Georgian territory, to that end.

Bill Clinton left no doubt that he’s for Barack Obama. But it’s striking that his case for Obama depended much less on any accomplishments by the candidate than on his intelligence, character, “family heritage,” “life experiences,” and promise. Consider that section early on in which Clinton said that Obama has an ability to inspire people, that he has the intelligence and curiosity a successful president needs, that he understands our increasingly diverse nation, etc. Only at the end of the section did Clinton discuss things Obama has actually done, and they included the odd ones of (in effect) winning the long primary battle against Hillary and then, just last week, picking Joe Biden as his running mate. “His first presidential decision,” Clinton called it. Usually, of course, presidential candidates do the deeds that qualify them for the job before they run for it.

Nearing the end of his speech, Clinton actually did cite Obama’s “achievements” as proof of “our continuing progress toward the ‘more perfect union’ of our founders’ dreams.” Clinton did not say what those achievements are. But it’s clear in context that Clinton had in mind one achievement--that of becoming the first African-American to be nominated president.

Some voters will choose Obama because he would be the first black American to be elected president. Yet it’s doubtful that this vote will be large enough to carry him to the White House. On this night, Clinton was not a compelling advocate.

The first thing that jumps out from Biden's speech is that the tone seems to appeal to the Jacksonians in the Jacksonian / Academic divide that Michael Barone explored during the primaries. He talks about "honor" and fighting and bloodying the nose of neighborhood bullies and the bearing of crosses.

This is not the type of imagery that Obama has been comfortable trading in.

John Kerry contrasted John McCain's bellicose reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia with Barack Obama's "statesmanlike" response. Recall Obama's first statement about the invasion: "Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war."

As John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann aptly observed: “That's kind of like saying after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, that Kuwait and Iraq need to show restraint, or like saying in 1968 [when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia] ... that the Czechoslovaks should show restraint".

President Clinton seems willing to put his arms around Obama in a way Hillary wasn't. He actually does say that Obama is ready to be president and defender of the Constitution (though not, interestingly, commander-in-chief). And he mounts a short defense of Obama by saying that in 1992 he, too, was charged with not being experienced enough for the job.

But still. It remains true that nothing either of the Clintons said about Obama wouldn't be equally applicable to any other nominee. The only Obama-specific recommendation President Clinton makes is that "His family heritage and life experience have given him a unique capacity to lead our increasingly diverse nation and restore our leadership in an ever more interdependent world."

One other note: Earlier the Democrats wheeled out Michele S. Jones, who gave the angriest speech of the convention. In addition to the tone being somewhat off-putting, Jones included this strange line: "America’s service men and women need a president and a commander-in-chief with the courage to serve, the gift to lead and the ability to get things done." She's not exactly pointing to Obama's strengths.

In anticipation of Joe Biden's introduction to the millions of Joe Sixpacks he's supposed to appeal to, I can't resist posting Biden's "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you" video:

While the Dems are abuzz with their new anti-Bush/McCain "four more months" catchphrase, courtesy of Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey, they seem to have forgotten to take a look at the calendar. Inauguration day, December 26, 2008? Not quite. Nonetheless, not once but twice, Casey demanded "Not four more years. Four more months." The Democratic ticket is all about the "future," but that future is not coming as soon as they would like us to believe.

During his remarks, Harry Reid called offshore drilling "snake oil and quackery" and said that "Doc McCain’s magic offshore oil elixir won’t work." Reid went on to ever so subtly bring up McCain's age by calling him "kindly old Doc McCain."

Reid also argued: "Senator McCain and the Republicans have centered their answer to our vital energy needs on one solution: offshore drilling." But of course McCain's energy plan offers more solutions than just offshore drilling, such as more nuclear power. Will Jonathan Chait denounce this scurrilous lie?

I sure hope not. Every time Reid brings up the Democrats' obstructionism on offshore drilling, McCain wins.

Denver
During that Democrats for Life meeting today, held at the Monaco Hotel not far from the Pepsi Center, some of the speakers criticized an ostensibly pro-life Republican Party for failing to make serious progress on a pro-life agenda. One criticism in particular was that despite the fact that Republican presidents have appointed all but two of the last nine Justices, the Supreme Court still hasn’t overruled Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision in which the Court declared a constitutional right to abortion.

Three thoughts:

First, Democratic congressman Lincoln Davis, one of the speakers who made this argument, failed to distinguish between (1) an overruling of Roe, which would restore to the people the authority to decide abortion policy, and (2) what that policy should be. After all, you can regard Roe as awful constitutional law (if even constitutional law) and still be for the abortion right as a matter of policy. Of course, pro-choicers would regard an overruling of Roe as a huge setback, since what the Court handed them in Roe would now have to be won again through the ordinary political process. From that perspective, an overruling of Roe could be said to be pro-life, but only in the sense that a loss for us is a win for them.

Second, if Davis truly laments the Court’s failure to strike down Roe, he can blame the pro-choicers who dominated his own party in 1987 when a Senate Democratic majority blocked the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. No one right or left doubts that had Bork been confirmed, and thus his eventual replacement Anthony Kennedy not nominated and confirmed, Roe would have been overruled, probably in one of the series of abortion cases in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which the Court was explicitly asked to overrule Roe.

Third, the Senate Democrats’ general in the Bork confirmation battle was none other than Joe Biden. Wonder what the pro-life Davis thinks of Biden’s role in that historic showdown. Biden, by the way, flip-flopped on Bork, changing his mind little more than a week after the judge was nominated, thanks to the anguished importuning of liberal interest groups.

A Hill aide points out this Seattle Times article, which reports that Democratic congressman Brian Baird is still a pariah in his own party for deciding to back the surge last August:

Brian Baird was lonely enough back when all his Democratic friends thought he was wrong.

But now that it appears he was right — that the Iraq war was going better, as he claimed, and President Bush's troop surge was working — the Southwest Washington congressman is even more of an outcast.

Now nobody much wants to talk to him about Iraq at all.

"After all that extraordinary outrage directed at me, not one person has called me up and said 'Hey, Brian, it looks like you might have had a point after all,' " said Baird, in Denver for his party's national convention this week.

"We say Bush is so blinded by ideology that he ignores the facts in the real world, and that's true," Baird said. "Aren't we doing the same thing? We're being just like Bush."

Baird touched off a furor last August when he effectively switched from the anti-war side by coming out in support of the troop buildup, which Democrats almost universally were trying to block.

I went down to Vancouver last summer to see Baird explain himself to his angry constituents. It was, I wrote, "one of the most severe tongue-lashings I've ever seen administered to a public official, at least face to face."

Six hundred people — from veterans to teachers, from a Columbia River boat captain to a lady who plays bagpipes at soldier funerals — spent nearly four hours calling Baird a sellout, Bush's lap dog, a neocon pet. Some told him to resign.

For all the grief he's taken, it's surprising that Baird is offering sound advice to his colleagues:

"We ought to just say that it worked. People were understandably skeptical of the administration at the time. But we have to acknowledge reality. Do you stay with a political position because it's popular even if it doesn't square with the facts?"

Baird's view is that if "the people in our party advocating for an immediate withdrawal of troops last year had gotten their way, it would have been disastrous for the U.S."

The McCain campaign has some wardrobe recommendations for those of us going to Invesco Field tomorrow.

Denver
After visiting the Manifest Hope gallery, I did a dispatch with tons of pictures of the new Obama iconography. Some of it has to be seen to be believed.

I was so moved by the change and the hope, that I dropped $20 on an Obama T-shirt:

As you can see, this is more of an Old Testament Obama, watching over His people in stern judgment.

Charles Krauthammer and others have noted the odd grandiosity of Obama's creation of a miniature Greek temple for the backdrop of his acceptance speech tomorrow.

But it seems to me that what Obama is likely trying to do is not suggest an Olympian setting, but rather to invoke the Lincoln Memorial, putting himself in MLK's place since we're marking the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream Speech."

This would be perfectly in keeping with Obama's modus operandi, which is to consistently invoke the words or symbols of other leaders instead of creating his own.

Here's Dave Barry on Joe Biden:

"The transformation of Joe Biden is one of the best story lines at this convention. A week ago, people would sprint from the room when Joe entered for fear he would start a sentence that might not end until Halloween. Now, suddenly, he is a towering stud muffin of charisma. His every move is big news. On Tuesday, the Rocky Mountain News ran a story headlined 'Would-be veep eats at Boney's.' It stated that Joe went to a Denver restaurant called Boney's Barbecue, which had been alerted in advance by the Secret Service (I am not making this up) to have smoked turkey legs ready. However, when Joe got there, he went with the pulled-pork sandwich. He's for Change!"

Seen in a storefront window close to the Pepsi Center: “Liberal Markdowns: 50 to 70% Off.” Ah, something liberal in this Democratic week that you have to like.

Denver
Georgian Ambassador Vasil Sikharuldize is one of the busiest men at the Democratic National Convention, hopping from meeting to meeting to seek American aid for his embattled country. When I caught up with him Monday night, he told me that the need for $1 billion in economic assistance from the United States—to help rebuild both Georgia’s civilian and military infrastructure—has been a focus of his talks with Democratic leaders, such as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice.

“What we’re talking about are strictly defensive capabilities,” he said, arguing that it would be “unimaginable” that Georgia’s small military would confront Russia. “We need new radars, new air fields, new military bases.”

Though Sikharuldize said the sale of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons from the U.S. to Georgia was not a measure currently being discussed, he told me: “We believe as a matter of deterrence this kind of equipment may be very helpful for us.” The ambassador also believes that “security cooperation,” including “frequent visits of U.S. officials to train Georgians,” is of the utmost importance, whether conducted “bilaterally or through NATO.”

Amb. Sikharuldize said that Russia’s belligerence demonstrates why Georgia ought to be admitted to NATO. He argued that the NATO's Article 5—which states an attack on one member country shall be considered an attack against all—would “serve as a deterrent.” As we discussed how the recent conflict may complicate Georgia’s bid for NATO membership, Sikharuldize said: “We will not enter NATO with any deal that treats South Ossetia or Abkhazia as special areas”—meaning that those areas should be viewed “as full parts of Georgia as any other part of Georgia.” In other words, an invasion of South Ossetia or Abkhazia would require a response by NATO members under Article 5, which would, the ambassador argues, deter a future attack.

Minneapolis
While Democrats prepare for night three in Denver, Republicans kicked off their pre-convention week in Minnesota yesterday. And with the recent polling and the media spending the first half of the Democratic convention debating whether Obama can win over Clinton supporters, the activists and delegates here are increasingly enthusiastic.

The convention will take place at the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul. Construction workers are busy transforming the sports/concert venue into a political convention hall. The floor of the Xcel Center--home of the Minnesota Wild hockey team--is a sea of new, red industrial carpet covering the ice rink. Workers are assembling chairs, building a podium, and running miles of cable. It looks like Extreme Home Makeover-Political Edition.

About 10 miles west, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, Republican delegates and party officials will finish drafting the GOP platform today. I sat through the deliberations yesterday and today and had a chance to talk to some of the participants.

The platform is being billed as the most grassroots-driven document in convention history, receiving over 10,000 ideas and comments through the first-ever online input process. But despite the contributions, the document is only about half the length of the 2004 platform. It’s divided into six major themes: 1. Economy, 2. National Security, 3. Spending and Government Reform, 4. Energy and the Environment, 5. Crime and American Values, and 6. Healthcare and Education. While the drafting and amending process has been rather smooth, delegates did conduct spirited debate over immigration, stem cell research, and global climate change. All of these issues, however, were resolved to the satisfaction of those involved, including the McCain campaign. There will be no minority reports or substitutes offered on the floor next week.

A convention veteran told me this: “The McCain campaign did a very smart thing. They let the delegates work their will and didn’t try to impose a heavy hand and just say no to every little change in the platform. The document will be something the party and the candidate can strongly support.”

The lack of platform fireworks is a welcome development.

"I’ve been to every convention since 1980,” a seasoned former congressional aide told me. “There have been many times where delegates caused a lot of trouble and it looked like the party was divided. This time they feel we can win--despite all the negatives--and we’re very unified. That’s why this platform process is moving ahead so smoothly.”

Another platform staffer said, "The parliamentarian seems really bored. We like it that way."

That's the claim that author Derek Chollet makes in this blog-post. A friend of mine isn't convinced. He writes:

"Chollet tries to argue that an Obama administration will follow the same centrist foreign policy that President Clinton pursued in his second term, which he characterizes as resting on three pillars: 'Embracing globalization and trade; promoting democracy; and developing a concept on the use of force that turned the usual liberal debate about using military power on its head - instead of the burden of proof falling on those advocating intervention, the burden fell on those who advocated doing nothing in the face of aggression (as we saw in the Balkans). By the late 1990s, and still today, these ideas framed the mainstream of Democratic foreign policy.'

"Although this is a fair characterization of the way the Clinton administration saw the world in the late 1990s, it bears little resemblance to where the Democratic party is today – which has drifted pretty far left over the past eight years under the influence of Moveon.org.

"First, with regard to trade, Chollet acknowledges that Obama and Biden 'have criticized some of the specifics of trade agreements, but have been steadfast defenders of an open global economy.'

"Let’s reflect on this for a moment. Obama has promised to renegotiate NAFTA, calling it a 'bad deal.' He has opposed every significant trade agreement that has come before Congress since he was elected to national office, including trade deals with key U.S. allies like Colombia and South Korea. To say that Obama has 'criticized some of the specifics of trade agreements' but is otherwise a 'steadfast defender of an open global economy' is like claiming that, other than his 36 years in the US Senate, Joe Biden is a fresh face in American politics. It’s absurd.

"Chollet’s next point point: 'Although strong critics of the Iraq war, Obama and Biden are hardly doves - they have called for doing more to end the genocide in Darfur and have advocated the use of force to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.'

"Seriously? The new litmus test for foreign policy toughness is ... a willingness to use force to kill Obama bin Laden? And 'doing more' about Darfur? "More" of what, exactly?

"And the final kicker: 'And [Obama and Biden] have made clear that they believe the U.S. must remain a steadfast defender of democracy around the world - as their response to the Georgia crisis demonstrates.'

"Perhaps Derek wasn’t paying attention, but Obama’s initial response to the Georgia crisis was to apportion blame equally between Russia and Georgia. It was explicitly not to draw a distinction between an authoritarian aggressor and a fellow democracy that was being victimized.

"I feel genuine sympathy for Chollet and his kin – hawkish foreign policy Democrats who have been hiding out at think tanks for the past couple years, eagerly awaiting their return to executive power, whereupon they hope to sweep left wing nuttiness from the party. Alas for them, the netroots aren’t going anywhere – and by all accounts, the presidential candidate they are about to nominate is closer in foreign policy instincts and temperament to the Daily Kos bloggers than he is to the liberal internationalists at the Center for a New American Security and the Brookings Institution."

For what it's worth, I am more favorably inclined to Chollet's interpretation than my friend - the realities of a dangerous world will likely lead President Obama to embrace the use of force and intervene abroad more frequently than his supporters believe (and hope). But it is also true, as my friend points out, that Obama's initial response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, and his passionate willingness to negotiate with dictators around the globe, suggest that his instincts are closer to MoveOn than Brookings.