http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2007/7/18/2335/96352/4#c4According to Atrios commenter Hecate, who was there, there was a lot of back-and-forth between the crowd and the speakers.
Reid stepped up to podium and there was a lot of yelling about impeachment. He said, "Friends, give me your attention." Voice from the crowd yells out,
"NO! You give us your attention! Impeach now!" The MoveOn and VoteVets folks were beside themselves trying to control the crowd and "keep it respectful." Wasn't going to happen. Congressman Lews got a lot of cheers, as did Boxer. Patrick Murphy, as well.
Levin, who spoke late, said, I hear you. The American people are way out in front of us. They've been way out in front of us. Barb McKulski said, "We're voting on the war tomorrow morning. You and I know that there are some other kinds of votes we need to have as well. I couldn't bellieve it... Shelia Jackson Lee got a lot of cheers. But every time some establishment Dem would say that Bush led us to war under false pretenses, folks would yell out, "You let him! You voted for this war! Cut the funding!" Senators and Congress critters kept saying "We need to be unified. You need to direct this anger at the Republicans." People kept yelling "Impeachment is not off the table." Really one of the most amazing things I've seen...
Someone asked about Pelosi, and Hecate responded:
Oh, yeah, and it shook her up. Cut her speech a bit short to let Durbin take over. I love me some Nancy, but I think it's good for these folks to understand that we're sick of business as usual while people die. Levin's right; we've been out in front of them for a long time and they need to haul ass to catch up. I just kept visualizing Nancy's spine getting stronger and stronger the whole time that I could see her and sending that energy to her. It shook a lot of them up; they were expecting a nice supportive crowd and a pep rally. There was a lot of that, but there was also a lot of anger directed at them.