  Now that I've had some time to let the convention speeches speak in, I'm going back to read the transcripts and comment on them in hindsight.
Here goes: urlLink Al Gore I'm still generally annoyed by this speech. Not only was it 15 minutes or so of urlLink borderline slapstick schtick, but it's painfully clear Gore is not over the 2000 election. It's time for Gore and the Democratic party to get over 2000. There are bigger things to think about, like, say, the 2004 election. urlLink Jimmy Carter I'll say again that it was a urlLink fantastic idea to put Carter up there.
He criticized the hell out of the Iraq war, talked about being in the Navy (equating his service with Kerry's), and was generally impressive. Moreover, he didn't say George Bush's name once. urlLink Hillary Clinton Senator Clinton had a lot of good stuff to say in not very much time. Unfortunately, I didn't catch any of it while she was saying it. I see why she wasn't initially invited to speak: she's boring .
urlLink Bill Clinton I've been hearing all day about how electrifying Clinton was (and is) -- in fact, Matt Yglesias even called him a urlLink "true blue motherfucking rock star" . It was clear that he was a big hit -- hell, he almost had me saying, "Send me! " along with him. But he still went on about 5 minutes too long (which is still better than 1988). 
