"With profound gratitude and great humility..."

Wow. Right out of the gate he distinguishes himself from George W. Bush who hasn't ever seen the working side of "humility" in his entire pampered life. And that was just the beginning. It was an awesome speech, an awesome moment in history, in every sense of the word. Today I am very proud of my country, and very, very proud to be a Democrat. Among the interesting commentary I heard after the speech last night was from an observer on NPR who noted that, while it has historically been considered an advantage to have one's convention scheduled second, the GOP may come to regret having scheduled their convention so closely following this Democratic one. This is going to be a very tough act to follow.

Naturally, there is wonderful commentary to be found from the usual suspects in Blogville. Some of my favorites:

Andrew Sullivan:

To my mind, it is vital that both parties get to own the war on Jihadist terror and that we escape this awful Rove-Morris trap that poisons the discourse into narrow and petty partisan abuse of patriotism. Obama did this tonight. We are in his debt.

Look: I'm biased at this point. I'm one of those people, deeply distressed at what has happened to America, deeply ashamed of my own misjudgments, who has shifted out of my ideological comfort zone because this man seems different to me, and this moment in history seems different to me. I'm not sure we have many more chances to get off the addiction to foreign oil, to prevent a calamitous terrorist attack, to restore constitutional balance in the hurricane of a terror war.

I've said it before - months and months ago. I should say it again tonight. This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.

Kevin Drum:

This is an iron fist in a velvet glove. Or is it a velvet fist in an iron glove? Whichever it is, he's calling out McCain in plain language not just for running a nasty, Rovian campaign, but for running a fundamentally unserious campaign. By tackling this head on, Obama has put a serious dent in McCain's ability to continue campaigning with dumb soundbites and too-cute-by-half innuendo. This isn't a teenager's campaign for junior high school student council, he was saying, it's a campaign for president of the United States and you're old enough to know that you should damn well treat it that way.

hilzoy

As publius said, "The McCain campaign seemed small and petty tonight — it has nothing to say about the large yet concrete issues discussed tonight." One of the things that's really striking about Obama is his ability to take facts like the smallness of McCain's campaign, which have been clear for a while to political junkies like me, and give a speech that makes them as clear as they can be, not by explaining them but by embodying the largeness of spirit that makes them plain.

It was a stunning achievement.

Digby:

My mind was greatly relieved last night. I think we are heading into the fall campaign with a standard bearer who is prepared now to take the fight to the Republicans. He's not going to lie back and take the character assassination now that McCain has shown that he's willing to roll around in the mud with the filthiest of GOP pigs. And he's not going to pretend that conservatism isn't responsible for the mess he's asking to be allowed to clean up. That bodes well for the long term.

For the first time, I'm feeling not just optimistic about the Dems chances of winning (I've always felt that) but that they might just win on their own terms.

Yes they can.

And also at Hullabaloo, the Dover Bitch makes publius' point a tad more concisely.

Here is the full text. I'll post the video when I find a good one.