What Exactly Was the Message?

BOSTON, July 28 -- The second night of the Democrats' four-day show here seemed to this tired observer to be a themeless hodge-podge -- almost as if they were affected by the fact that ABC, CBS and NBC were taking a pass.

And I can prove it from this morning's headlines.

The Boston Globe sees a sharp tone: "Convention speakers rip Bush in shift of rhetoric."

USA Today sees the temperature rising: "Democrats turn up heat on Bush."

But The Washington Post sees a night of restraint: "Democrats focus on healing divisions."

If the pundits can't agree, that tells you something.

My own headline would have been "Obama in 0-12," since he clearly gave the most dynamic speech of the night. Teresa Heinz Kerry was interesting but, in truth, kind of flat.

Maybe Tuesday was just destined to be the Everything Else night, the speakers who had to be given podium time but didn't make it into the Clinton/Gore first night, the Edwards Moment third night or the Kerry's Big Speech finale.

The Boston Globe lets it rip: "The second night of the Democratic National Convention featured harsher criticism of the Bush administration, with Senator Edward M. Kennedy accusing the president of making the world a more dangerous place for Americans and the son of a Republican icon countering the president's stand limiting stem cell research. Teresa Heinz Kerry told her own story even as she extolled her husband's virtues, declaring, 'By now, I hope it will come as no surprise that I have something to say.' . . .

"Meanwhile, the Democrats offered a glimpse of what they said may be the future of their party, presenting Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee in the Illinois Senate race, in their keynote speaking slot. In a prime-time address, the 42-year-old son of a white mother and black father from Kenya highlighted his journey to become the first black to serve as editor of the Harvard Law Review, and railed against 'spinmeisters' who 'like to slice and dice the country into Red states and Blue states.' . . .

"The evening was built around Kennedy. He drafted a speech aimed at allowing delegates to vent their antiadministration fervor before Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, present their vision for the country in their acceptance speeches."

The New York Times stitches the rhetorical quilt together:

"With a rallying cry from one of its bright young hopes, a roar from its old liberal lion and a loving endorsement from the candidate's own outspoken wife, the Democratic Party offered up John Kerry on Tuesday night as a worthy heir to the patriots of the past, ready and able to unite a nation bitterly divided by the policies and politics of the Bush administration."

USA Today is wowed by Obama:

"Democrats were electrified Tuesday by their emerging star, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, and roared appreciation of their reigning liberal lion, Sen. Edward Kennedy, as the convention's second night focused on energizing the party's traditional base."

The Chicago Tribune, naturally enough, zooms in on its home-state guy:

"Barack Obama's latest effort at rewriting the rules of political ascendancy raised an interesting question Tuesday night: Can a star be born before the election's been won?

"State legislators don't get the call to be keynote speaker at presidential nominating conventions. They get seats in the back rows of the delegation, if that. Incumbent senators and governors wait in line for years for time on the podium.

"But for Obama, a mere candidate for the U.S. Senate, there is no waiting. His time is now.

"It is now because he serves so many purposes for Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. At 42, Obama is a generational bridge. As an African-American, he is a racial bridge. But those almost miss the point. Most important, Obama is a critical bridge to the suburbs, home to the crucial votes Kerry so clearly needs in the fall."

Kerry is rolling the dice in one respect, says the Los Angeles Times:

"With the intense assault on President Bush's national security record during the Democratic convention's first two nights, Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign is taking the risk of highlighting a debate in which his opponent now holds the upper hand in almost all polls.

"Bush campaign strategists, surprised by the fervor of the criticism, signaled Tuesday that they intend to strike back hard and fast. . . .

"One response will come today when the Republican National Committee releases in Boston an 11-minute video detailing what it calls shifts in Kerry's position on the war in Iraq."

I was just thinking about how little attention Dean was getting -- just six months ago the geniuses of the press thought he would be nominated this week -- when I clicked on this Philadelphia Inquirer piece:

"No doubt about it, Howard Dean has a bad case of Teresa Envy.

"He loves the story about how Teresa Heinz Kerry told a journalist to 'shove it.' He's so juiced by Sunday's episode that he mentioned it twice yesterday, in separate pep talks to his acolytes. Eyes afire, he bellowed: 'Let's hear it for Teresa! Tell it like it is, baby!'

"These days, Howard Dean can't always tell it like it is -- not at this peace conference, anyway. When prompted, for example, to diss the Democratic establishment -- a favorite target of his during the primaries -- he's like a pit bull leashed to a fence and clamped in a muzzle.

"How quickly we forget that this was supposed to be Dean's convention. It seemed inevitable last winter, before Iowa voters decided he wasn't ready for prime time, and before his primal scream sent him into free fall. But now the failed antiwar candidate is saying that the man who beat him is fabulous ('I'm proud of John Kerry's leadership,' he said last night) and that he has no problems with Kerry's caution on Iraq."

The New York Post leads with the candidate's wife:

"Teresa Heinz Kerry last night delivered a somber speech like no other would-be first lady -- lecturing Americans on morality, her right to be 'opinionated' and the need to listen to the 'wise voices' of women."

The Washington Post and Ann Coulter, dissed together? Salon's Eric Boehlert makes the connection:

"So far there have been two major media black eyes at the Democratic convention in Boston. The first was on Monday when the Washington Post handed out 10,000 copies of a special convention issue of the daily, complete with the dated banner headline 'Election 2000.'

"The second talked-about misfire was USA Today's decision to spike as unusable a column it had commissioned from radical right-wing pundit Ann Coulter. The decision to not run the lazy, mean-spirited rant actually made perfect sense, especially after Coulter reportedly refused to make any requested changes. But then Coulter ran to Fox News and insisted that the paper was trying to 'ban' her conservative voice, which meant USA Today had a headache on its hands.

"The Post blamed its snafu on a production error; the news desk had used a template from the last time a special convention issue was published and forgot to double-check the date. And what was USA Today's excuse? Why on earth did the paper, known for its moderate bent and almost old-school approach to journalism (anonymous quotes are still a no-no there), ever think it was a good idea to open up its Op-Ed pages to a fringe columnist like Coulter? She's someone who's on the record -- after 9/11 -- as saying, 'My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building,' and whom even the conservative National Review, which used to publish Coulter, has tagged as nonsensical."

Andrew Sullivan is intrigued by the Dems' rising star:

"I don't know enough about Barack Obama to judge whether he will be a good senator on a range of issues, but from his speech tonight, it's hard to think he anything but a stellar future. What he emphasized was another theme of this conservative convention: that the country must and can unite.

"It's a brilliant maneuver to pose as (and exemplify, in some cases) a force to overcome the divisions within the country, divisions that make all of us frayed and often testy in a time of grave danger. America is deeply thirsty for a black leader who is first and foremost an American leader; and for any leader who can reach out to both sides of the culture war. Obama struck many conservative notes: of self-reliance, of opportunity, of hard work, of an immigrant's dream, of the same standards for all of us."

National Review's David Frum wasn't pumped by last night's proceedings:

"9:15. Could Dean not find even one nice thing to say about John Kerry? Apparently not. The overwhelming impression that a viewer gets from this convention so far: The only candidate that gets this convention excited is George Bush.

"9:50. An impressive show by Barack Obama. His speech was all cliché, 100% content-free -- but delivered with conviction, force, and the faintest sprinkle of humor. He reminds me of that saying of Napoleon's: Give me lucky generals. How many people had to drop anvils on their toes to make this guy the front-runner for Illinois' open Senate seat? But yes, I do believe we are looking at Hillary Clinton's running mate for 2008.

"I wonder though what the people who write the Democratic party's quota rules think of Obama's critique of multicultural gerrymandering and appeal to national unity?

"10:02 Ron Reagan's appearance tonight just underscores one more resemblance between Ronald Reagan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt: They both had worthless children."

Ouch.

"10:45. Teresa has been speaking for almost 10 minutes and has not insulted anyone -- so that's an achievement. She's talked about space exploration, energy efficiency, and America's role in the world. And of course we're all fascinated to hear her views. But there's one supremely important subject on which she qualifies as a genuine expert: that is the character and personality of the man the Democrats are about to nominate as president. And on this topic, she offered nothing warm, endearing, or personal. Doesn't anyone in his party have something nice to say about this guy?"

Double ouch.

Enough with praying at the pillar of positivity, says the New Republic's Jonathan Chait:

"The challenge for Democrats at the convention is to project an uplifting, positive message, and not to give in to the rabid impulses of their hardcore anti-Bush base. That, in any case, is the line that seems to be programmed into the brain of every reporter and pundit in Boston. Am I the only one who wants to retch when he hears this, and not just because it's been repeated so often?

"First, the notion of Bush-bashing as the sole province of lefty radicals reflects a deep misunderstanding. Opposition to Bush may have a radicalizing effect, but it's not a radical phenomenon. One of the peculiarities of Bush's presidency is that many of his most outspoken critics -- Howard Dean, Paul Krugman, Al Gore -- had well-established moderate credentials before he took office. Even the Democratic Leadership Council has taken a stance of searing opposition to Bush. Sure, radicals like Michael Moore have glommed onto the Bush-bashing movement, but fundamentally the intense opposition to Bush is a product of the president's radicalism and partisanship, not that of his critics.

"The corollary is that opposition to Bush, far from being a minority notion confined to blue state salons, is actually quite widespread. Bush's job approval rating has consistently remained below 50 percent. In fact, the proportion of Americans who want Bush out of office is substantially larger than the proportion who want Kerry to replace him. So the idea that boosting Kerry is a mainstream sentiment, and bashing Bush a minority sentiment, has it backwards."

If you're interested in how Peter Jennings, Sam Donaldson and the ABC gang are providing 24/7 digital coverage of the convention, check it my story from The Washington Post today.

Finally, I have this report on Kerry vs. the tabloids:

The New York Post's front page Tuesday featured a huge picture of the Democratic presidential nominee-to-be in a spacesuit, crawling out of the shuttle Discovery at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Next to the headline ("BOSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM") and a description of Kerry's "ridiculous outfit," Rupert Murdoch's paper ran a shot of Woody Allen dressed as a sperm from the movie "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask."

The same Kerry photo ran in the Boston Herald, whose front page this week has been devoted to Kerry-bashing, with the story comparing his donning of the "clean suit" to 1988 nominee Michael S. Dukakis's flub of riding around in a tank. (The Herald's banner headline, "TERESA'S TED K TIRADE," spotlighted some remarks that Kerry's wife made in a 1975 book.) The in-your-face pictures landed like a meteor, with cable networks showing them throughout the day.

Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said Kerry was required to wear the suit. "Given the challenges facing our nation today, you'd think these papers could find something better to write about," he said. Campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, asked by Fox News whether NASA's release of the photo was a dirty trick, said: "Well, what do you think?" No photos were supposed to be taken, she said.

But Kennedy Space Center spokesman Mike Rein said a video was made of Kerry "as we have done for the last 40 years." He said that NASA takes such footage because of the "very confined and hazardous area" and that the pictures are always made public.

New York Post Editor in Chief Col Allan said he was just having "a bit of fun." Asked if he was trying to make Kerry look silly, Allan said: "He needs no help from us."