DENVER--The punditizing began--predictably--before Hillary Clinton even stepped down from the stage. As the woman wearing the tangerine pantsuit and the firm Colgate smile waved to a sea of shaking signs--white Hillary signs, blue Unity signs, long polelike signs that said her name on one side and Barack Obama's on the other--the chattering classes rushed to the airwaves and the Internet to deliver their verdicts. There were--also predictably--two main reactions: the sigh of relief and the nitpick. "She gracefully marked her place as one of America's premiere politicians with a firm, commanding, gracious argument on behalf of Barack Obama," wrote Time CW-monger Mark Halperin (the former). "Hillary Clinton obviously doesn't like Barack Obama," countered the New Republic's Jonathan Chait (the latter). "She's clearly hesitant about the prospect of him as president." And never the twain shall meet.

So where does Stumper stand? Somewhere in between.  

All the gushing coverage--the lines about it being "the best speech she could've possibly given"--strikes me as the product of unreasonably low expectations (and the power of the moment). A full week of watching the MSM hyperventilate over the "Clinton-Obama conflict" seemed to have convinced some observers that Clinton would take the stage attired in the revolutionary garb of some maniacal Third World dictator and seize the nomination by bloody force--even though, as I wrote Monday, "the chance that she'll deliver an off-message speech (like Pat Buchanan in 1988) or give Obama the cold shoulder (like Kennedy did to Carter in 1980) is exceedingly slim." But thanks to the manufactured suspense, a speech that did the obvious--honoring her fans, making her support for Obama clear and putting distance between herself and John McCain--played in the hall, on television and, I suspect, in living rooms nationwide as something more like Cicero. I'm not saying Clinton's speech wasn't good. It was. From the start--"I'm here tonight as a proud mother, as a proud Democrat, as a proud senator from New York, a proud American and a proud supporter of Barack Obama"--her passion for party unity and commitment to convincing her supporters to vote for Obama was clear. And the section about Harriet Tubman--"even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going"--was graceful and moving. But it's worth noting, as the nitpickers do, that while Clinton personally praised Joe Biden ("A strong leader and a good man ... He is pragmatic, tough, and wise") and even McCain ("John McCain is my colleague and my friend. He has served our country with honor and courage"), she didn't say anything positive about Obama as a person. And she certainly didn't make any "clear, flat assertion that Obama is qualified and prepared to be commander in chief from day one"--her central criticism of the Illinois senator, and now McCain's.

That said, I think Clinton was right not to pretend that she and the nominee have suddenly become BFFs. Simply put, her best bet for achieving party unity was persuasion, not propaganda. Consider her audience: reluctant, mourning supporters who need to be convinced--not commanded--to consider her former opponent. As the polls constantly remind us, many of them still don't like Obama--and they probably suspect that Clinton shares their skepticism. As Hillary supporter Jerry Straughan told The Washington Post this morning, "Who knows what she really thinks?" So instead of gushing, Clinton played the lawyer, presenting a passionate but pragmatic case perfectly calibrated to connect with this particular jury: you are Democrats, you care deeply about Democratic issues, and there's only one Democrat left in the race. "Were you in this campaign just for me?" she asked. "Or were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?" The implication, of course, was that her supporters didn't need to be "in it" for Obama, either--as long as they accept the fact that helping those "invisible" people will be "impossible if we don't fight to put a Democrat"--any Democrat--"in the White House." Anything more effusive would've required the audience to suspend disbelief. At its heart, the speech was convincing because it was credible.

Going forward, a few Hillary holdouts--the ones who were, in fact, "in it for her"--will continue to hold out. But last night, Clinton delivered the savviest argument in her arsenal. That it played like poetry was just icing on the cake.