Michelle Obama Liveblogging

DENVER, Colo. — It’s Michelle Obama’s turn. Her brother Craig is introducing her. It’s a disgrace that this country has to be taught not to fear an accomplished African-American woman. “She did take something away from that first law-firm job,” says Craig. “A young lawyer named Barack Obama.” What kind of president will he be, judging from his basketball game? “He won’t back down from any challenge.”

8:36 pm. Deafening cheers. Michelle’s mom smiles. She’s stuttering a bit, but somehow it seems conversational. “At 6-foot-6, I’ve often felt Craig was looking down on me, too.” Good comic timing for a lame joke.

8:38: “I come here as a wife, who loves her husband and believes he will be an extraordinary president. I come here as a mom whose girls are the heart of my heart… And I come here as a daughter raised on the south side of Chicago.” She’s misting up when talking about her parents’ struggle to put their children through college. “I know… that the American dream endures.” That’s the answer to the out-of-context nonsense about her not being proud of America. Again, it’s unseemly, the need for Michelle to have to tell white America that she’s a human being.

8:43: “America should be a place where you can make it if you try.” Barack Obama, in Chicago, told “the great American story” — not to accept the world as it is, but demanding the world as it should be. “To mold the future into the shape of our ideas.”

8:44: “I stand here…knowing my piece of the American dream is a blessing hard won by those that came they before me.” She has passion. “The military families” — she points her finger — “who say grace every night with an empty seat at the table.” Wow is she good.

8:46: Support for Hillary Clinton. Michelle applauds her for “18 million cracks in that glass ceiling.” An “obligation to fight for the world as it should be… And that is why I love this country.” She is so passionate it seems she might actually tear up. Her eyes a bit misty.

8:49: End the war responsibly. A fair and just economy. Health care. Education. “He’ll achieve these goals the same way he always — by bring us together and reminding us how much we share and how alike we really are.”

8:53: Tonight, we can say — she says — “we committed ourselves to building the world as it should be.” This is a home run. It’s sullied only by the idea that she “needed” to convince white people that she’s nothing to be afraid of. (Watch ignorant, all-white TV pundits stumble around that one tonight.) But change is coming.

8:55: WTF? Barack Obama is now videoconferenced in. “Now you know why I asked her out so many times, even though she said no. You want a persistent president.” Big blogger-lounge laughs. Awww Sasha Obama can’t stop speaking. This is beyond adorable.