For all the possibilities I had in mind for how yesterday’s session of the Democratic National Convention would go, I never thought that I would end up feeling sympathetic for Hillary Clinton’s supporters, and that the sympathy would be engendered by the actions of Nancy Pelosi. The MSNBC anchors I was watching didn’t make much of it — not that they would, of course, but Pelosi refusing to pause even for a millisecond between asking for nay votes on Obama’s acclamation and closing the vote was one of the most galling displays of Democratic power I have ever seen. I make no secret of my disdain for the Clintons and how they moved the Democratic Party, seemingly irrevocably, to the political centre and marginalized true liberalism within the party. That being said, there were a lot of delegates in Denver who came to show their support for Hillary — I’m guessing they got a lot of face time on Fox News — and they deserved to have their voices heard in that acclamation vote. There was never any danger of them making the one-third threshold to force the state-by-state tally to continue, and denying them the opportunity to make that one final clarion shout against Obama’s nomination was unconscionable.

It’s bad enough that the Democrats work so hard to silence the Green Party and Ralph Nader’s campaign, but now the Democrats are turning this undemocratic, un-American behaviour on themselves like they never have before. I realize there is something to be said about a political party presenting a unified front, but when the leaders of a party act so overtly to silence its own members, it betrays the fears and the ill intentions not only of the party leaders, but the party as a whole. If Barack Obama wins this election — and I do not believe that John McCain will be able to hold as close to Obama as he has these past couple of weeks, especially if Gustav hits New Orleans in the middle of the Republican National Convention — then, just as the Democrats adopted Democratic Leadership Conference centrism after Clinton’s election, the Democratic party will move even further to stifle dissent in the future. Political parties are supposed to be about ideas, not people, and the Democrats remolding their party so completely around Obama these past couple of months bodes poorly for the future of American democracy.

There have still been some moments of levity these past forty-eight hours, though. For a while there I thought that convention attendees were applauding Bill Clinton for so long and so loud last night because they were trying to keep him from talking before his alloted time had expired. I especially like Keith Olbermann taking the piss out of Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews live on the air; I think Olbermann, better than anyone else at this convention, understands the ludicrousness of the news networks using the convention to promote themselves and their talking heads more than actually talk about what is going on at the convention and what it means for the country. Olbermann is aware that he’s one of those talking heads, and he brings the smarminess when it’s expected of him — he knows who signs his cheques and why they’re so big — and he’ll be the first to admit that he has an oversized ego. Still, I appreciate that he’s called Matthews and Scarborough when their pomposity has gotten out of hand. After how depressing the convention itself has been, Olbermann’s provided me with a little chuckle every now and then to help keep me sane.