Bill Clinton says Obama is ready to lead America

DENVER (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton offered hearty and unqualified praise for Barack Obama on Wednesday, saying the man who crushed his wife's White House dream was ready to lead America and restore U.S. global leadership.

Clinton said Obama, who defeated Hillary Clinton in a bitter struggle for the Democratic nomination, could lead the United States past the divisions and strife of the last eight years of Republican leadership under President George W. Bush.

"Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work I've done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job," Clinton told a crowd of Democrats waving American flags.

"Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world," he said, directly addressing the attacks on Obama by Republican presidential rival John McCain. "Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States."

Clinton, one of the party's biggest stars, had been a loose cannon on the campaign trail during his wife's primary battle, frequently straying off message to level angry complaints about Obama.

But he was a loyal team player on Wednesday, drawing a comparison between the criticism he heard during his run for the presidency in 1992 and the Republican attacks on Obama ahead of the November 4 election.

"We prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief," Clinton said, repeating a criticism his wife also leveled at Obama during the primaries.

"Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history," he said.

Bill Clinton's speech was the last act in a swirling drama that overshadowed the first few days of the convention, as the lingering resentments of some of Hillary Clinton's supporters threatened to boil over on the floor.

Hillary Clinton put an end to that threat with an impassioned call for party unity on Tuesday and an emotional call for Obama's nomination by acclamation during a roll call on Wednesday.

She watched her husband's speech from a box in the balcony of the convention hall, waving American flags along with hundreds of other delegates. Bill Clinton called her speech on Tuesday "magnificent."

'TWO OF US'

"Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she'll do everything she can to elect Barack Obama," he said. "That makes two of us."

Bill Clinton had showed his irritation with Obama frequently during the nominating fight, calling Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war a "fairy tale," comparing Obama's win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson's triumphs there and accusing the Obama campaign of "playing the race card on me."

Asked recently if Obama was ready to be president, Clinton could only muster: "You could argue that no one's ever ready to be president."

To help ease the tension with the Clintons, Obama had offered them both prime-time speaking roles. Bill Clinton was reportedly upset he was being forced to discuss foreign policy, but Obama said he told Clinton earlier this week that he could talk about whatever he wanted.

Clinton did just that, giving the convention a detailed description of the challenges facing the United States after eight years of Republican rule.

On the economy and foreign policy, he said McCain "still embraces the extreme philosophy that has defined his party for more than 25 years."

"They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more," he said. "Americans can do better than that, and Barack Obama will do better than that."

(Editing by David Wiessler)