Obama nominated!

Um, well, the New York Times said today that news organizations and bloggers would be racing to be the first to announce that he had gone over the top, so, um, let the record show that Balter's Blog was among the first with this breaking news (as many journalists have pointed out, bloggers are not really journalists, so we cannot be held to the same high standards as the mainstream media.)

And since I have said repeatedly that Obama should not be seen as a savior, but rather a more or less passive facilitator for the political activism his election might stimulate, the light around him in this photo should be taken ironically (or photoelectrically.)

Photo: REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Update I (June 5): The New York Times reports this morning that Democratic leaders have finally convinced Clinton to leave the race and endorse Obama, which she is slated to do this Saturday. I love the quote from New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, a major Clinton supporter :

“We pledged to support her to the end,” Representative Charles B. Rangel, a New York Democrat who has been a patron of Mrs. Clinton since she first ran for the Senate, said in an interview. “Our problem is not being able to determine when the hell the end is.”

The one good thing is that the Obama campaign and other leading Democrats appear to have called Clinton's bluff to hold the vice-presidency for ransom as the price for ending her campaign. The three-person committee Obama has appointed to choose a VP, which includes Caroline Kennedy, has apparently been told to take its time.

Update II (June 5): The Huffington Post's Michael Shaw ponders the Barack-Michelle fist bump. His conclusion: They are a very relaxed couple, and it's a generational thing he can't imagine John and Cindy or Bill and Hillary doing. I can't imagine George and Laura doing it either, not even when the mission was accomplished.

Update III (June 6): Although I am critical of some of Obama's positions, especially on Israel (see more recent post above), I certainly want him to beat McCain. And there may be signs that a lot of the alarmist talk about how Obama won't get support from women, Latinos, whites, Martians, left-handed pitchers, etc. etc. may have been just that: An interesting story in the Los Angeles Times today indicates that Obama is already doing very well indeed. For example, he is polling 62% of the Latino vote against McCain.