Ann Althouse had this to say about the Hillary Clinton speech:

Somewhere in there, Hillary said that she supports Barack Obama, but for the most part, it felt like another one of her campaign speeches. Anecdotes. Lists of problems, principles, and policies. We kept seeing closeups of Michelle Obama, who seemed to be closely monitoring the her husband’s wily old opponent. And Hillary didn’t do anything wrong, but did she help Barack Obama? She did say, addressing her supporters, she says “Were you in it just for me?” She answers that they must have supported her because they supported what she believed in and wanted to achieve. And therefore, we need to a Democrat in the White House. She says Obama’s name a few times, but it seems to me as if it’s just something that follows by reason of the desire to have a Democrat in the White House.

That is essentially right: Hillary said nothing about Barack Obama’s character, qualifications, specific policies or anything that wasn’t “Democrats are better than Republicans.” She didn’t, as the McCain camp was quick to point out by email, say he was ready to be commander-in-chief. And she didn’t say anything to non-Democrats: she only asked those who voted for her and for Obama to vote for him in November. A number of conservatives figured this out.

And so did liberals. Jonathan Chait wrote:

But she did not say anything positive about Obama as a person. Her reasons for supporting Obama were all ways of saying that Obama is a Democrat. “This won’t be easy. Progress never is. But it will be impossible if we don’t fight to put a Democrat in the White House,” she said. Or, “Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, President Clinton and the Democrats did it before. And President Obama and the Democrats will do it again.” This is an argument for a yellow-dog Democrat.

In other words, she got by without taking back any of the negative things she said about Obama in the campaign or doing anything more than was required. She did not endorse him because he is a wonderful candidate; she endorsed him because he is the Democrat. And by being so much better than any other speaker at the Convention (and potentially better than Joe Biden), she probably did not do much to clamp down on the “Why not her for VP?” chatter among disappointed Democrats.

She is perfectly positioned for 2012, should Obama falter. If he loses, she can rightfully claim that he should have chosen her as VP, or the party should have picked her as the nominee.

And as for Obama, sometime in the next two days he’ll have to explain why he is qualified, what his message is, and why he is a better choice than John McCain. No one — least of all Hillary — has done that yet.