Sweet Bippy came home from the hospital today, 3 months and 2 weeks after his birth. Getting out of the hospital was a bit of an adventure. Loaded down with our oxygen tanks, monitors, and bags a-plenty, we’d gotten about five steps out of the NICU when red lights started flashing and alarms went off. Standing in front of the elevators, the excited nurse ran out to us apologizing for forgetting about the security bracelet around his ankle. (It’s like house arrest!) Lest we be accused of abducting our own baby, we turned back around while she cut off the bracelet and gave the all clear.

Down in the lobby we are confronted by the security who checked our parental identity bracelets. We were allowed to pass, but then we were chased down again in the elevator. Security hadn’t gotten the all clear. But after assessing that we were a legitimate discharge, we were finally allowed to depart the hospital.

In the car, pulling into busy traffic, I told him, “We sprung you, boy. You’re on the lam now.”

It’s been a long day, trying to get Mr. Infant settled, swaddled, fed and med’ed. I can’t imagine what a wild day of stimulation it has been for a baby who has stared at hospital ceilings for months. But he’s here now and our lives together are underway.

While we were attending to two sons–Son One had his 1st grade orientation today–we were blessed with the support of many. Special thanks to Laurie and Jim, who tracked down hardware to replace our missing crib hardware. And Mary, who entertained our son for hours this evening. And Nonna and Papa who brought us breakfast, did the laundry, and helped with the boys. And Dawn, who gave us clothes and an important pep talk. Midge decorated our mailbox for our return, and Son One drew a lovely welcome banner and diligently made sure that nobody stepped on his brother’s cables. (He is indeed his brother’s keeper.)

Says Son One of his new brother: “He looks like a monster with a tee-shirt on.”

Also says Son One: “I’m not going to get another brother after this, am I?”

Says Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention: “That is the change we need now.”
My response to the TV, taking a sniff: “The change we need now is a diaper change.”

It’s a little hard to get your message out with Ferraro ranting and Spitzer folding, but Obama had a good event today in which he received the endorsement from a lineup of retired flag officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. It was a good counter to the insinuations from the Clinton campaign in recent weeks that Obama fails to meet some vague threshold of Commander-in-Chiefness.

Since it’s drowned out by the other news of the day, I’m posting the link to the Obama news conference to help give it a tiny bit of play.

Best line of the speech:

After years of being told that Democrats have to talk, act and vote like John McCain to pass some Commander-in-Chief test, how many times do we have to learn that tough talk is not a substitute for sound judgment?

I’ll also note that in addition to the support of these retired generals and admirals, Obama has the enthusiastic support of two of my favorite fighting Dems–Bryan Lentz and Patrick Murphy.

I’ve been one of the Obama supporters who has also been quick to defend Senator Clinton. To date, I’ve been proud of them both.

But as the crossroads for the Democratic Party approach, I’m getting increasingly disgusted with the tortured logic of the Clintons and their surrogates. Barack Obama has the lead in pledged delegates, popular vote, and contests won. The entire Clinton claim to the nomination now rests on making a flawed argument to superdelegates that infers November outcomes from Clinton’s modest big-state victories among Democrats.

Ed Rendell was on Meet the Press this morning, where he intoned repeatedly that caucuses are undemocratic, which is meant to discredit much of Obama’s success.

So goes the Clinton/Rendell argument: primaries > caucuses.
Here’s the problem: primaries > caucuses > letting the machine decide.

I greatly respect the superdelegates who have refrained from announcing their endorsements while voters are waiting to weigh in. But if it really is a problem that we’re having an increasingly damaging intra-party war, the remaining superdelegates can announce what their criteria will be. Then the war rooms can do the math in each of the campaigns, and one of them can start to position themselves for a face-saving, graceful exit.

I would make this argument to the Obama campaign: you’ve built your case for a different kind of politics around the concept of grassroots power. Whatever you think about the rules that currently exclude Michigan and Florida, you have to recognize that it was career machine politicians in both parties that created the situtation. I think Obama should be championing little-d democracy by being full-throated about the importance of letting Michigan and Florida voters count. Michigan should be winnable for him, anyway, so why choose to stop being a movement candidate now?

Super Tuesday redux: Hillary Clinton wins states that Democrats win. Obama wins in states we need to win. I don’t want the electoral college map inherited from 2000 and 2004. I want a new map.

Hillary Clinton’s case used to be inevitability. Now she’s struggling to spin her margins as nominal victories over an insurgent movement candidate from within her own party.

I want to win more than an election. I want to grow the number of people who seem themselves within the progressive agenda.

I think that the question of judgment is a credible one for Obama to raise. Of course, past performance is not a perfect indicator of future success, but clear thinking about Iraq in the runup to the war seems like a good test.

My ears pricked up at a new wrinkle in Clinton’s explanation as to why she voted for the authorization of force:

Knowing that he was a megalomaniac, knowing he would not want to compete for attention with Osama bin Laden, there were legitimate concerns about what he might do.

So I think I made a reasoned judgment.

I’ve always been bothered by Clinton’s assertion that the intentions of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were concealed and unknowable. But okay, screw me once….

And I’ll concede that nearly everybody in government seemed to believe that Saddam probably–if not certainly–had a stockpile of some weapons of mass destruction.

But having WMD is different from using WMD. Hussein had control over the Iraqi state. Using WMD outside of his borders would cause an immediate and swift, unified response from the world to strip him of his power. Clinton justifies her vote by saying that she thought that Hussein would be jealous of all the attention that Osama bin Laden was getting? A ridiculous bit of amateur psychological profiling is a centerpiece of your “reasoned judgment” to authorize the war?

In my book, that’s either being governed by unreasonable fear, or being tragically overconfident in your ability to personally read the intentions of faraway dictators.

The Giants win the Super Bowl in a gigantic upset, while the Obama campaign has a Super Bowl ad in the hopper to run right after the game. That’s one way to raise your profile.

Tonight my son made the poignant observation: “Daddy has too many meetings for the Democrats.” I was at the Delaware County Democratic nominating convention last night. There was a local meeting last week also, so I guess it does seem like a lot.

Not too much to report of general interest from the convention. No floor fights. Bob Brady was there. He spoke for about three minutes. Joe Sestak was there spoke for–er–longer. We heard from Auditor General Jack Wagner. I’ll be darned if he doesn’t have an eye on the Governor’s mansion a few years out.

It doesn’t hold any real significance, but there was a straw poll on the presidential race. I believe the tally reported was Clinton 92, Obama 85, Edwards 12 (despite his pullout earlier in the day). These are your party stalwarts, and there’s not a consensus. (If anybody was there and has corrected/updated numbers, please feel free to chime in.)