Hillary Clinton's "Concession" Speech

"Here's my endorsement, dearie."


I missed the first few minutes of Hillary Clinton's "concession speech" this morning because my wife sent me out to walk the dogs (you know how it is). I was able to catch most of it though, and to me it was vintage Hillary Clinton.

The Grand Event was held in the National Building Museum in Washington. Actually, I'm surprised it wasn't held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. You have to hand it to the Clintons; when it comes to upstaging people on what should be their day in the sun, these people are pros. This was a throwback to George Bush's first inauguration when the Clintons did everything they could to upstage the new president with their farewell ceremonies leaving Washington and arriving in New York.

As is her nature, Mrs Clinton's speech was precious little about Barack Obama and a whole lot about her historic run and what it meant for women everywhere. Oh, she announced that she was "suspending" her campaign and endorsing Obama, but other than that, it sounded like she was giving her inauguration speech.

At the conclusion of the speech, Hillary and Bill hit the rope line to shake hands with their admirers for what seemed like an eternity. (Actually, Big Red was usually several yards away, and it seemed every time I looked at him, he was hugging some young babe-but I'm sure it was all professional and platonic.)

For the post-speech analysis, I switched around from Fox to CNN to MSNBC. One Fox commentator immediately pegged it for what it was-a speech all about her. Someone else thought it sounded like she was auditioning for the VP slot reminding everyone about the 18 million people who support(ed) her. MSNBC, on the other hand, led by Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Tim Russert, pronounced it a "splendid speech"-as dispassionate an analysis as anyone could humanly hope for, of course.

Maybe it's just me, but I still have a lingering feeling in the back of my mind that something could still happen between now and the convention that could derail Obama. I know there are several reasons that Hillary uses the term "suspend" her campaign, but "suspend" means the possibility of re-starting.

Advice to Obama: Watch your back.