Clinton Praises Obama’s Readiness, Judgment While Joe Biden Shows His Mettle as V.P. Pick

By: Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb

Call it the Redeem Speech.

Instead of basking in the glow of a nomination that could usher him and his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, back into the White House, former President Bill Clinton stood before the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night urging Americans to vote for someone else – Barack Obama.

And he did it without hesitation.

“I am here to support Barack Obama,” Clinton began his speech after a long and enthusiastic welcome from the crowd.

“You heard Hillary last night say that she would do everything she can to elect Barack Obama. That makes two of us. Actually, that makes 18 million of because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November,” Clinton said, referring to the 18 million people who voted for Clinton in the primaries.

Clinton’s enthusiastic support of Clinton even drove the crowd to chant Obama’s slogan: “Yes We Can!”

“Yes, he can,” Clinton said. “But first, we have to elect him.”

It was a speech that may have finally laid to rest suggestions that Clinton would be unable to let go of the disappointment that his wife did not win the Democratic nomination for president and fully, wholeheartedly embrace Obama.

“If the goal is big enough, sure, he can work with Obama and I think Bill Clinton wants a Democrat elected,” said Michael Frisby, a public relations executive who covered the Clinton White House as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

The Clintons came under fire during the primary contests because of the Clinton’s campaign’s dismissiveness of Obama’s candidacy; the suggestion that voters in the caucus states didn’t really represent the will of the people or that black voters were voting solely on the basis of race and that his wins didn’t matter because previous black candidates Rev. Jesse Jackson and/or Rev. Al Sharpton fared well in some of the same states – particularly South Carolina – and didn’t win the nomination; calling Obama’s position on the war a “fairy tale;” to some, diminishing the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., by saying it took a president for his efforts to reap benefits and, near the end of the campaign, Hillary Clinton calling herself the candidate of “hardworking white people” left both the Clintons with a long row to hoe with some black people.

But several people were ready to bury that story line.

Clinton Praises Obama’s Readiness....