What we're reading: Progressive blogs

Hillary Does Her Duty
'Hillary hit almost all the right notes tonight, and she hit them with authority. Obama supporters should be more than happy with Clinton's speech, and by the reaction of the crowd in the hall, they were. If there is one thing the Obama folks could take issue with, however, it's the one Michael Crowley pointed out as soon as we were handed a copy of her prepared text: she did not say Obama was ready to be Commander in Chief.'
Posted by Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics on August 26

The merits of Biden
'My concern is this, however. Is Joe Biden another Lloyd Bentsen? Michael Dukakis was buried in the 1988 election when he failed to shake off his reputation as just another Massachussets liberal. He had chosen Bentsen, a weighty and experienced politician of moderate views, as his running mate in order to counteract that image. Bentsen was so impressive in that role, especially in the famous debate with Dan Quayle (see below), that he inadvertently drew attention to how feeble a candidate Dukakis was. Obama is not a feeble candidate, but he is an inexperienced one, and his instincts on foreign policy appear to be ill-formed as well as ill-informed.'
Posted by Oliver Kamm on August 23 at 5:02pm

‘Responsibility deals’ and the parable of the bears
'You might think that this all seems a bit woolly, that it amounts to getting businesses to specify what the government is allowed to ask them to do, and that if they then do that, they get allowed to do other things that the government previously didn’t want them to do, and if it doesn’t work out then excuses will be preferred to actual blame. It might seem preposterously toothless and designed to let businesses get away with as much as possible while creating the impression that they, and the Tory government that lets them get away with it, are socially responsible.'
Posted by Tom Freeman at Freemania on August 28 at 10:11am

Raise your voices...
The Conservative Party has plummeted to defeat in the last two General Elections on a manifesto based around cuts to public spending. David Cameron has achieved a large lead in the opinion polls on the back of his 'cuddly conservatism' and promises that his Bullingdon chum Gideon Osborne will not cut public spending and would maintain Labour's public spending commitments.
Posted by Councillor Bob Piper on August 26 at 10:28am