"In the last five years, our soldiers have done everything we asked of them and more. They were asked to remove Saddam Hussein from power and bring him to justice and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi people the opportunity for free and fair elections and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi government the space and time for political reconciliation, and they did. So for every American soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice for this mission, we should imagine carved in stone: 'They gave their life for the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being, the gift of freedom.'

"And I believe that at the same time that we have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being – the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America."

There was nothing accidental about this line. She delivered it in response to two Iraq veterans introduced at a town hall meeting at the Austin Convention Center by her friend and campaign surrogate Ted Danson. She liked the line enough that she delivered it again a couple of hours later, at a campaign-closing rally at a basketball arena in south Austin. "The gift of freedom" is, of course, a curious way to describe an unprovoked invasion and occupation causing hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and leaving just about every aspect of life chaotic and fraught with daily dangers. To then lay responsibility for the mess on the Iraqis -- we did our bit, now you do yours -- is the worst kind of dishonesty, a complete abdication of moral principles.

Andrew Gumbel at Huffington Post

In probably the book's most riveting scene, former President Bill Clinton shows up as a surprise guest at the Austin DA confab. After Clinton's usual smooth presentation, Guy Saperstein, one of America's most successful trial lawyers and a DA expert in foreign affairs and healthcare, rose to ask a question. Saperstein mentioned that John Edwards had already apologized about voting to authorize the Iraq war. "Why shouldn't every Democrat who voted for the war -- including presumably Hillary Clinton -- do the same thing? How were Democrats supposed to have any credibility if they wouldn't admit when they had been so calamitously wrong."

Clinton quickly went ballistic: "He leaned forward belligerently and pointed a finger at Saperstein. 'You're wrong,' he said. 'Everything you just said is totally wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.'" He went on to explain away Hillary's vote on the war and tell Saperstein he wasn't productive. "Only in this party do we eat our own. You can go on misrepresenting and bashing our own people, but I am sick and tired of it."

Clinton later apologized and realized he had made an error, but it was too late for many of the people in Austin. On the surface, the exchange had been about the war, but it symbolized much more: "It had been about Clintonism itself and the centrist governing ethos that had led the party to this place in its history." To the progressives, Clinton's desire to remake the Democratic Party "had stripped the party of its moral authority."

Bloggers and Billionaires, MoveOn and Howard Dean: The Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party