Don't miss the wrap-up of The American Prospect's round-the-clock convention coverage. Below, you'll find our blog from the climax of the convention on Thursday, as well as links to the earlier coverage. And we've got much more coverage than just the blog. Take a look at these great stories from Todd Gitlin, Robert Kuttner, Michael Tomasky, Harold Meyerson, and many more!
C-SPAN, KERRY SPEECH, 1:13 A.M.: Kerry passed on the opportunity I talked about on TAPPED a few days ago -- the chance to frame any action Bush takes on the 9-11 Commission's recommendations. I had to watch Kerry's speech again to be sure, but the sad truth is that, for all of the piercing attacks he fired off (and there were more than anybody predicted), he made virtually no effort to define Bush on this front. Edwards set Kerry up for it, in what I thought was one of the best lines of his speech: "We are approaching the third anniversary of September 11th, and I can tell you that when we're in office, it won't take us three years to get the reforms in our intelligence we need to protect our country. We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to make sure that never happens again, not to our America." Had this come out of Kerry's mouth, any action Bush took to execute the commission's recommendations would have been paired with this line. And it would have resonated.
But Kerry didn't touch it. The closest he came: "The 9-11 Commission has given us a path to follow, endorsed by Democrats, Republicans, and the 9-11 families. As President, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that commission." As a soundbite, this fights the flip-flopper notion but does nothing to limit Bush. When Bush does make some token changes -- perhaps as soon as Friday -- the Kerry statement they will be paired with in media clips will be his suggestion to extend the commission's mandate, a proposal that to most people will just sound like dithering and delay. As Harold Meyerson said, it's politically negligent on Kerry's part to allow Bush to seem the decisive one on this issue -- but that's just what he's done. Jeffrey Dubner
MSNBC, AFTER-HOURS WRAPUP, 12:21 A.M.: Pat Buchanan, of all people, just made a sound critique of the 'theatrics' of the Kerry speech tonight. Kerry should have maximized the power of the short film by using that as his introduction rather than the Max Cleland/Band of
Brothers intro. Don't get me wrong: It was great to see Cleland up there, and
he gave a fine speech. But the combo of Kerry's daughter and the Spielberg-produced short film was a very powerful one -- and it didn't make the networks'
coverage of the speech. This is unfortunate, because Pat Buchanan and I both
think that the American people tuning in for this, the most important hour of
the week, would have been blown away.
By the way: I haven't been watching much MSNBC this week, so I only just now saw the Ron Reagan/Joe Scarborough pairing. Reagan is a funny, slightly dorky
host, and makes Joe Scarborough looks like the local red-faced blowhard.
Personally, I think Reagan should be a permanent fixture on Scarborough
Country. Just a thought. Ayelish McGarvey
PBS, CHARLIE ROSE SHOW, 11:33 P.M.: I've said it once tonight, but I'm happy to say it again: I love George Mitchell. He uses a sharp intellect and a lifetime of rich experience to make
an impassioned case for John Kerry, as well as an airtight case against George Bush. He's not harsh, and he doesn't resort to appeals to our baser instincts.
Charlie Rose was prodding him to admit that Kerry's speech was backwards looking, too focused on the past. Mitchell looked incredulous. "You tell what
a person will do by examining what a person has done," he said simply. " How
do you measure a person except by their life?"
Note to the Kerry campaign: Make good use of George Mitchell in your
administration. He's only 70 years old. Although we missed our chance to have
him on the Supreme Court, he's
too good to waste on Charlie Rose and Larry King. Ayelish McGarvey
CNN, 11:20 P.M.: After Wolf Blitzer apologized for (and brought back to the viewers' attention) the accidentally broadcast obscenity, Jeff Greenfeld pointed out that we've now heard that from “Dick Cheney, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and the director of the convention.” No, Jeff, that's not quite what Teresa said. “Shove it” is not in the same mold, no matter how desperately you want it to be. Jeffrey Dubner
FOX NEWS, 11:15 P.M.: Credit where a little bit of credit is due: While CNN was giving their screen over to Ed Gillespie and the Republican National Committee, FOX News had the good grace to interview Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's campaign manager. Jeffrey Dubner
CNN, 11:06 P.M.: On CNN, in the after-speech waving and celebration, as the crowd cheers and balloons trickle down from the ceiling in rather puny
rivlets, you can hear clearly a voice screaming "Where are the balloons? We
need more balloons coming down. More balloons! More balloons! What's that
fucking guy doing up there?!" The Wolf and Jeff Greenfield eventually identify
the speaker as being one of the directors of the event. As I write, the
balloons are finally coming down hard. Meanwhile, CNN has now turned it over
to their very first post-speech guest analyst: Ed Gillespie. Sam Rosenfeld
C-SPAN, JOHN KERRY SPEECH, 10:37 P.M.: Kerry valiantly addressed his religious faith this evening with this passage:
MEDIA TENT, 10:32 P.M.: Looks like Iraq did get into the speech a bit. Good for Kerry. Unfortunately, what he had to say on his plans for the future didn't
really resolve anything. I'll buy that Kerry could get more cooperation from
allies than Bush can, and that doing so would reduce the burden on U.S. forces.
But who cares if the burden is lower if we don't have a workable policy?
Meanwhile, does Kerry really think an imminent threat to the American people
is the only justification for going to war? Was he having trouble locating
Kosovo on a map when he supported that war?
Matthew Yglesias
CNN, 10:28 P.M.: Why is Kerry rushing over the applause breaks so much? He's gotta let the convention hall exult a bit more. Is he worried about finishing
before 11:00? Would local news actually cut him off? Sam Rosenfeld
CNN, JOHN KERRY SPEECH, 10:23 P.M.: The VIP box wasn't quite ready for the cameras' pans up to John Edwards and
Kerry family: Elizabeth Edwards was leaning over her husband's left arm,
trying to get his attention and tell him something, but he stared straight
ahead, knowing that the cameras were on him. He tried to tell her out the
corner of his mouth, but only when John Kerry named his Veep did Elizabeth get
the picture. Oops! Ayelish McGarvey
C-SPAN, 9:41 P.M.: Another Kerry family flip-flop -- John Kerry's mother led a troop of Girl Scouts. But then, she became a Cub Scout den leader. Which side
is John's mother on? Ken Nesmith
C-SPAN, KERRY DAUGHTERS SPEECH, 9:33 P.M.: The Kerry daughters outdid themselves tonight, doing their father a very good
turn with their introduction. The two women spoke confidently and warmly, and
took to the national stage with impressive ease. The two made clear their
affection for him and shed light on his personality, the quirky traits that
only daughters could identify in their dad. Teresa Heinz Kerry's blase
performance the other night doesn't hold a candle to this one.
Will the Bush campaign even dare allow Barbara and Jenna to approach the dais?
After the Kerry women's great performance tonight, the smart money says no. Ayelish McGarvey
C-SPAN, 9:21 P.M.: "Hey Ya!" to introduce Andre Heinz? Are you kidding me? Ayelish McGarvey
C-SPAN, 9:20 P.M.: The camera just panned up to the VIP seats, and Hillary Clinton,
Willie Nelson, and P. Diddy are seated alongside one another. I would give my right arm to listen in on that conversation. Ayelish McGarvey
CNN, LARRY KING LIVE, 9:15 P.M.:Thank goodness for George Mitchell. He has been on the early edition of Larry King's show for the past two nights of the
convention, and he's a much-needed voice of liberal wisdom. Appearing
alongside him tonight were Bob Dole, Bob Woodward, and Joe Lieberman. Woodward
made a derisive comment about John Kerry being a “loner” in the Senate, a man
without many close friends in the halls of power. Joe Lieberman just sat by
and smiled like the Cheshire Cat, while Bob Dole gave Woodward an amen with a
comment about how important it is for a leader to have comrades on the Hill.
George Mitchell put an end to the “Kerry as snob” schtick with a cutting
comment about the candidate's close relationship to both John McCain and John
Heinz. “Face it,” said Mitchell “[senators'] demands are great, they have to
do their work!” Ayelish McGarvey
FOX NEWS, HANNITY AND COLMES, 9:05 P.M.:
Hannity is bragging to Rudy Giuliani about our booming economy and the glories
of Bushonomics. Hannity obviously missed this
piece in The New York Times today, the lead graf of which reads: “The overall
income Americans reported to the government shrank for two consecutive years
after the Internet stock market bubble burst in 2000, the first time that has
effectively happened since the modern tax system was introduced during World
War II, newly disclosed information from the Internal Revenue Service shows.”
Kind of speaks for itself eh? Mark Goldberg
FOX NEWS, 8:51 P.M.: Bill O'Reilly dug around for what he likes to think of as a representative sample of the Democratic party tonight, all of whom coincidentally resemble giant elves in suits and ties. Dennis Kucinich spoke about Kerry's stance on Iraq, Barney
Frank spoke about Kerry's stance on same-sex marriage, and Dick Morris spoke
about … who am I kidding, I couldn't even stand to listen to him.
Then O'Reilly trots out Boston Herald columnist and dittohead Howie Carr, one of the only men more deserving of the Lifetime Anti-Kerry Achievement Award than "Swift Boats for Truth" leader John O'Neill. The pair spares Kerry nothing. They attacked his courage: JFK should stand for “Just for Kerry,” Carr said. They attacked his wives:” “Maybe he's just turned on by rich women,” O'Reilly opined. Finally, O'Reilly went for the jugular: “In your opinion Howie, is Kerry evil?”
I'll let you guess his answer. Rob Anderson
MEDIA TENT, 8:32 P.M.: I'm watching Nancy Pelosi on television while chatting
with a journalist from the Italian newspaper Manifesta, who informs me
that pelosi is Italian for "hairy" -- in the sense of body hair, rather than
head hair. He thinks this is hilarious. Matthew Yglesias
C-SPAN, 8:05 P.M.: Matt's very right to preemptively strike out against Kerry
(and Madeline Albright) for dodging Iraq. Joe Biden just finished with his
foreign-policy speech; he both talked about Iraq and did so
effectively. Biden's not an artful speaker, but he conveyed what
should be the centerpiece of the Democrats' critique -- that Bush's
belligerence and incompetence have only left America weaker -- better than
anyone else I've seen. And he really nailed his best line: "It's only
leadership if somebody's following. And nobody's following us." Sam Rosenfeld
THE PERIMETER, 7:52 P.M.: Judging by the excerpts the communications people have
made available, John Kerry doesn't plan to address the Iraq issue at all in his speech. Now there may well be a reference in there somewhere in the non-excerpted bits, but I imagine that if he had anything of substance to say on the subject there would at least be a hint of it in the highlighted
excerpts. I've read the full text of Madeleine Albright's speech and the woman
who's presumably on the stage for her foreign-policy expertise isn't
mentioning it. I don't know if this is good politics or not, but it's about to
become slightly worse politics after I get through denouncing him for it.
To be fair, my Plan A for this denunciation was to get on my high horse about how offensive this was to the 100,000-plus men and women currently serving in the
shooting war the Democratic nominee doesn't want to talk about. So I left the Fleet Center to speak to a couple of MPs who, fortunately for me, turn out to be
veterans of the "reconstruction" effort. Unfortunately for me, they didn't
really care. Unfortunately for Kerry, they didn't really care because
they seem implacably opposed to voting for a Democrat, concerns about what
Bush had done here notwithstanding. So maybe it's not offensive to the troops
(though it still seems to me that it should be, and I bet that if I spent
enough time hunting down more MPs I could fine someone who's offended -- such
are the perils of journalism), but I think it's mighty shabby and I hereby
invoke my friend since pre-kindergarden serving over there as standing to take
offense.
The theme of the week seems to be some kind of vague positioning of
Kerry as "tough" in the Truman-Kennedy Cold War liberal tradition, and I think
Kerry's done a good job of doing that. But a general pose of Kennedyesque
strength (and, of course, respect in the world) tells us almost nothing
about what to do with the war we've got on our hands. I think both candidates
have an obligation to say something about it. Matthew Yglesias
CNN, ANDERSON COOPER 360, 7:45 P.M.: Anderson's interviewing Peter Jennings and the normally docile Canadian vents his frustration with ABC for not giving adequate time to convention coverage.
After getting this off his chest, Jennings makes a point that in all my
convention-coverage coverage, I have yet to hear. (Shocking to hear something new and insightful at this stage.) Anderson repeats the tired refrain that “this is the most important speech of John
Kerry's life.” Jennings, however, is quick to disagree. “I don't think John
Kerry thinks that this is the most important speech of his life,” said
Jennings. “Rather, I think he thinks that the speech he gave before the Senate
Armed Services Committee as a 27-year-old is the most important speech that
he's given in his life.” Mark Goldberg
FLEET CENTER, 7TH FLOOR, 6:29 P.M.: Copies of some embargoed excerpts from
John Kerry's speech were floating around up here a little earlier. As Garance pointed out to me over the phone it involves the word "freedom" and how Democrats like freedom. That, I think, is an excellent development. Somehow over the past few years liberals seem to have let "freedom" get turned into
a forbidden bit of right-wing jargon like "tax relief" or something when it should be a perfectly reputable part of the liberal lexicon.
An unrelated observation: Why would you have the convention take a 30-minute recess from 6:30-7:00 when no one pays attention to the speeches this early in the program anyway? Matthew Yglesias
FOX NEWS, C-SPAN, CNN, 5:24 P.M.: Here's a fun game you can play tonight: Turn
the television on to convention speaker. Switch between FOX News, C-SPAN, CNN and
any other network you like. Notice how no matter who's speaking, they look and
sound worse on FOX News. Maybe they can't afford good cameras. Maybe they just
don't have the right mic technology. Or maybe ... Rob Anderson
C-SPAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE BRIEFING, 1:50 P.M.: The RNC sure puts on an effective press conference. Rudy Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld fire away on the DNC and tout the upcoming Republican National Convention. The room is packed with supporters cued to explode at Giuliani's line, “I don't need Michael Moore to tell me about September 11.” You can really see how well the media's conventional wisdom plays into their talking points; the meme that the DNC has been all about putting Bush-bashing aside and presenting a moderate, unified Democratic Party is just a short step away from the RNC spin that the Democratic Party is “running away from its record.” Giuliani even has a well-scripted and well-delivered response to the question of what makes the Republican convention less of a “makeover” than the Democratic convention: “I haven't had a makeover. I'll be the same as I've always been and so will all the speakers.”
And on the bottom of the screen, C-SPAN runs the message, “For more information: www.demsextrememakeover.com.” Not the Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards Web sites; not the RNC's anti-Kerry Web site and the DNC's convention Web site; just the RNC's attack site. Even through C-SPAN, they put together a very slick package. Jeffrey Dubner
BOSTON MARRIOTT, 1:30 P.M.: On a day humid enough to make a jogging James Carville look like a sweaty old man, the Boston Marriott hosted a curious smattering of rallies in adjacent conference rooms. The environmental rally was the best attended and
featured an emotional harangue from Robert Kennedy, Jr., that kept the
crowd of a few hundred cheering. Carl Pope emceed
gaffelessly (redeeming himself for mangling the "fool me once" aphorism, when recounting Bush's famous mangling of it, at Tuesday's Campaign for America's Future event). Today, in excitement, he asked, "Can't we just vote tomorrow?"
Next door to the envirothon, Jesse Jackson addressed a small crowd
composed mostly of African-Americans. He asked the audience to repeat back his key
sentences word by word; they dutifully mumbled them back, utterly unimpassioned. He spoke
well of Obama (and who couldn't?), fitting him into the ongoing civil
rights struggle from Brown v. Board of Education onward. Ken Nesmith
NEW YORK STATE DELEGATE BREAKFAST, BOSTON PARK PLAZA HOTEL, 11:24 A.M.: I don't know how these people do it. The party at Avalon went until 3 A.M. or later, but a couple hundred revelers dragged themselves out of bed to listen to speakers from 8 a.m. until 11 a.m. at the New York State Delegate Breakfast. Many had been to every breakfast of the week; every day, they complained, the hotel had run out of silverware.
The line-up was worth the bleary-eyes. A fiery Eliot Spitzer, sister of the candidate Peggy Kerry, and a hilarious Al Franken. Ben Affleck was crisp-looking yet disappointing. A handful of big state Dems were there as well. Flaks handed icons of their cause around to each table: dog tags from the pro-withdrawal group Operation Truth, founded by a veteran; buttons reading "Peggy for First Sister"; lots of union paraphernalia.
Next to me, Paul Tonko, a member of the NY state legislature for 12 years ("and chair of the energy committee"), told me that the difference between this convention and the others he'd attended was that "this one is upbeat." "I love the theme of taking a divided America and making it unified," Tonko says between bites of lukewarm scrambled eggs, "and looking to build a stronger country. And repair our respect in the world! I see this convention as a turning point, a critical juncture."
Tonko stopped talking when Spitzer took the stage. The crowd loves him. "Do not dare use 9-11 for political purposes!" Spitzer boomed. He went on a big Dem promo tear and an appropriately “I Love New York” tour of history -- announcing NY to be the birthplace of the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, etc.
But as engaging as Spitzer was, it was Al Franken who held the crowd.
Said Franken, "There's been a lot of talk about ‘No Bush Bashing in the Halls.' But why not in here?" So warned, Franken covered a Michael Moore-ian sweep. "When Bush said he was against nation-building in 2000," Franken began, "We didn't realize he meant our nation. ... Remember when our President referred to our war against terror as a crusade? That was smaaaart." The biggest laughs came in response to his imitation of the Pakistani cab driver that the Bush administration should have brought in to test out themes like "Operation Infinite Justice." "Oh noooooo," Franken said in his best Pakistani accent, prompting gasps of mildly horrified laughter, "only Allah can bring infinite justice!" Sarah Wildman
THE NEW REPUBLIC, 11:22 A.M.: Peter Beinart has a fascinating and complicated argument as to why Democrats are so united this year, rejecting the conventional wisdom that Democrats just hate Bush. "[T]hat can't be the whole explanation. Democrats hated Ronald Reagan, too, yet they weren't nearly this unified in 1984." But let me suggest an alternative to both theories: Democrats are afraid of Bush. The GOP lost a lot of ground in the 1982 midterms; the Democrats controlled at least one house of Congress throughout the Reagan years, the House on a seemingly permanent basis. Bush, on the other hand, has utterly ejected the Democratic Party from political power and engaged in a series of behaviors that's led even The New Republic to run shrill cover stories accusing the president of undermining American democracy. If this crew gets re-elected they'll be able to further entrench their political power,
notably by building a majority of true Scalia/Thomas-style conservatives on the Supreme Court. I regard such talk as slightly paranoid, but a large number of the delegates and volunteers I've spoken to at the convention honestly believe that Bush is trying to set himself up as a dictator. Under the circumstances, disputes on minor things like policy issues don't seem very relevant. Matthew Yglesias
CHARLES SQUARE LEGAL SEAFOODS, CAMBRIDGE, 10:05 AM: I was en route to yet another NDI event at the Charles Hotel when who did I see but Ambassador Joe Wilson enjoying a cigar. I introduced myself and sat down for a chat. Wilson made an interesting point about the British "second [i.e., non-forged] source" on the Niger claim: that Security Council Resolution 1441 called on member states to share all intelligence on Iraqi nuclear weapons programs with the IAEA and that the IAEA didn't buy the Niger claim. Hence, either the British did share their second source and it was regarded as unreliable, or else for some reason they refused to share it. Wilson speculated that the second source was nothing more than the information that Iraq's ambassador to the Vatican visited Niger in 1999, which isn't exactly secret intelligence at this point. That would be consistent with what Robin Cook, the former British Foreign Secretary who resigned from the Blair cabinet over the war, told Laura
Rozen yesterday: that the UK doesn't have any sources of
intelligence in Niger at all.
Wilson says it's very unlikely that the Iraqi ambassador in question would have been charged with a uranium-related mission. For one thing, says Wilson, he didn't know anything about uranium. (NB: The 9-11 Commission Report recounts a story where al-Qaeda sent some operatives who didn't know anything about uranium to buy some in Sudan with the predictable result that they bought some stuff that turned out not to be uranium. On the one hand, this indicates that it's a very bad idea to send non-experts to buy your uranium for you, but it also indicates that it's not out of the question that someone would, in fact, send non-experts even though it's a bad idea.) What's more, for a variety of reasons (notably his Turkoman ethnicity and non-traditional sexual orientation) he wasn't a highly trusted figure in the regime. Wilson thinks that the point of the trip was simply to offer West African officials paid junkets to Baghdad as part of Iraq's long-term effort to undermine the sanctions regime. Matthew Yglesias
WASHINGTON POST, “TOO NICE FOR THEIR OWN -- AND OUR -- GOOD," 8:47 A.M.: Style columnist Tom Shales gave a critique of the "namby-pamby" convention content, but an even more biting commentary about the media's convention coverage. From Katie Couric to Bill O'Reilly, few were left unscathed. On the cable channels they refuse to cede “the spotlight they so much love” and ask “nonsensically contentious questions,” while on the networks they can't find a better story than the "hoary old bore about how conventions don't matter any more." Anna Palmer
MEZE, CHARLESTOWN, 2:30 A.M.: At last, a cool party. Only who would have thought the "blogger bash" would be a cool party? Not only am I, a genuine blogger, given a little green VIP bracelet entitling me to free drinks, but there are actual people here! Toilers in the guts of the Party's DNC/DSCC/DCCC/DNCC apparatus mostly, but also Janeane Garofalo (and my friend Ben who now seems to do her booking), Andy Stern (who assures me he doesn't really want Kerry to lose), this guy from Google who I met months ago and owes me $6, and Old Media dinosaurs like Victor Navasky, Eric Alterman, Robert George, and the Prospect's own Harold Meyerson. An atypically clean-shaven Josh Marshall admits that he hasn't actually done anything worthwhile this week, Campaign Desk's Tom Lang and Brian Montopoli sulk over their lack of VIP status, George says the GOP may have to write off the black vote for decades after Obama's speech, and -- most important of all -- Alterman tells me "you could be making a lot more money working for me." Editors take note. Matthew Yglesias
NEW YORK DELEGATION PARTY, AVALON, 2 A.M.: Girl into cell phone: "Alec Baldwin is here! Al Sharpton! All kinds of cool people!" Not to mention the now-ubiquitous Steve Buscemi, who gave a short speech. ("Contrary to popular belief," Buscemi said, referencing his offing on the Sopranos, "I'm alive and well.") Sharpton held court, first at a bar on the first floor and then in the VIP lounge upstairs as well-wishers came to express their admiration both for his floor speech and his general persona.
A man next to me during Buscemi's speech was covered in buttons. I asked him if he was a delegate. No, he said, "I'm a mayor." Oops. "Edward Arrington, Mayor of the village of Owego,
New York. Since March 17th. Actually in office since April 1. They tell me I'm the first African-American mayor in upstate New York." Arrington was jovial. "I'm an optimist about this election," he said, putting his arm out in camaraderie.
Then Alec Baldwin took the stage. "I know you want food and booze and cigarettes and sex," he said, by way of indicating he wouldn't be speaking long. "I'm going to miss Bush," he admitted. "He was funny." Sarah Wildman
DEMS2004.ORG, 12:57 A.M.: We long to comment more on the substance of speeches and interviews here at the Prospect convention blog, but alas -- for want of a TiVo, we can't always get down the quotes for close readings. The DNC website has the transcripts for some of the week's speeches, but they're running a bit behind -- Wednesday's are not yet up, and even some of Tuesday's speakers are relegated to a non-hyperlinked mention. (Those of you aching to read young Ilana Wexler's speech that so moved Ayelish McGarvey will just have to wait.) Jeffrey DubnerAnd let me say it plainly: In that cause, and in this campaign, we welcome
people of faith. America is not “us” and “them.” I think of what Ron Reagan said
of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't
wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live
by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim
that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly
that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us
all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for
others and for our country.
His timing was perfect, and the Lincoln quote drew one of the loudest cheers
of the evening. Kerry absolutely spoke to conservative believers with that
statement. They want to hear that he honors -- and understands -- the power of
religious faith. But they don't need him to quote scripture and exorcise his
demons to be compelling. This line was perhaps the most memorable of the
speech -- Kerry clearly set himself and his values apart from the false piety of
the Bush administration. Ayelish McGarvey
