President Clinton to deliver opening keynote at Netroots Nation 2009

This is pretty cool:

In June, a dozen or so bloggers got a chance to meet with President Bill Clinton for a candid discussion on a range of topics, ranging from the environment to health care to the role of today’s new progressive era.

Reading about this meeting of got us to thinking: What if President Clinton came to Netroots Nation to discuss this new progressive era? After all, governance and grassroots activism is a huge focus of our convention this year.

Well, we are thrilled to announce that President Bill Clinton will join us in Pittsburgh to help kick off our fourth annual convention on Thursday night.

In 2006, we had Harry Reid and Howard Dean. (Dean proceeded to show up each subsequent year because he believes in people powered politics). In 2007, we had Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and Mike Gravel. Last year we had Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore.

This year, we get President Clinton.

It'll be the first time that a former president has put in an appearance at our convention. (Not that there are that many for the organizers to make an appeal to... President Carter would be the only other possibility).

I was hoping for a surprise appearance from Joe Biden (he missed the presidential leadership forum in 2007) - who knows, maybe that'll happen too, or if not, then there's next year - but this is pretty sweet. Elvis, in person. What a treat.