J. King: One of the key themes of this campaign is that John Kerry is ready to be commander in chief. They will have some generals out tonight, some speeches about that, his Navy service, and yet on the floor, the anti-war sentiment here is dramatic. How delicate of a balance is that for Senator Kerry to walk?


4) There’s also a fixation on the Kerry campaign’s stated desire to avoid attacking the president. To judge from reporters’ tones, CNN seems to view it as a moral failing that an opposition party would criticize a sitting president. They were particularly distressed by a speech given by Al Sharpton:

Cooper (to Mark Racicot) : So, you give the Democrats absolutely no credit for not being vitriolic against the president?

Blitzer: (to Sharpton): There’s still plenty — millions of Americans are watching this convention. And Judy, I’m not sure that this was necessarily the kind of speech the Kerry campaign wanted to see.

Blitzer: But Donna, to the public watching on television, the Kerry people are very sensitive to this, they wanted to try to project the sort of toned down image emerging from the Democratic Party this week, and Al Sharpton, as you and I and all of our viewers now know, certainly didn’t tone down anything.

Wallace: The Kerry campaign wanted this to be a positive message, no bashing of President Bush. Did Reverend Sharpton cross the line here?

Crowley: (to Sharpton) I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your speech and tell you that you were a little off message, I think.

Crowley: (to Sharpton) This has been a very upbeat, positive, no Bush bashing, at least those were the instructions. Do you feel like you crossed over that line?

L. King: Bob Dole, everyone here seems to be saying that Al Sharpton went over the top, did he?

Gergen: After a couple of nights of moderation, both in political tone and the orator, they’re starting to take the gloves off tonight. We saw it with Sharpton, we’re going to see it with John Edwards too. The early release of some of his comments, pretty tough. The headline on it, Edwards attacked Bush very strongly.

Gergen: The early read on it is, people have looked some aspects of the speech of what they released, taking some hard swipes at the president. Is he going to go down that road instead of being the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?


5) There was also near-constant repetition from CNN of the assumption that voters see Democrats as weaker on national security:

Woodruff: Historically, Democrats have had trouble with that issue. Ever since Vietnam and George McGovern who we talked to in this hall today. Democrats have to time and again prove they’re as strong as building up the military, building up the Pentagon, the defenses of this country. John Kerry has that trouble this year.

J. King: Senator Kerry’s big challenge, and this is our subject for tomorrow night, is to prove that he can be the commander in chief, to convince the American people to change commanders in chief in the middle of a war.

J. King: They do — right now, President Bush has an 18-point lead over the Democratic ticket when it comes to the question of: Who do you want to lead the war on terrorism?


6) And of course, a slew of miscellaneous instances of nonsensical reporting:

Crowley: So mostly, John Edwards will talk about John Kerry, who finally made it to town aboard a slow boat to Charleston named the “Lulu E,” a teensy bit outside the muscular image the Kerry campaign is hoping to conjure up to show voters he’s tough too.

Cooper: That brings us to today’s buzz. What do you think at home? In his speech tonight, John Edwards, what he should he do, make the case for Kerry, or take on President Bush? Log on to CNN.com/360, cast your vote. Results at the end of the program.

Cooper: You don’t hear a lot of the candidates talking backwards. I mean Al Gore, you know he sort of jokingly referenced it, but he made a point I’m not dwelling on the past. Is there a danger of you bringing this up dwelling on the past?

Schneider: John Kerry doesn’t want to be Michael Dukakis. He wants to be Teddy Kennedy. Michael Dukakis has disappeared. He has the image of loser to the Democratic Party.

Greenfield: One quick point. There is an interesting debate we’ve set up between Barack Obama who talked all last night about one America, and John Edwards, who talked in this whole campaign about two Americas. They might want to figure out how many Americas there are and get a united party.

Wallace: What about, though — you’ve heard from African- Americans who say John Kerry hasn’t done enough to include enough African-Americans within his campaign, to reach out enough to African- Americans. What about that criticism for those who say he’s not doing enough.

Crowley: When you talk about why African-Americans have been loyal to the Democratic Party, as you did tonight, there are, of course — you’ve got — you know, three very prominent members of the Bush administration are African-Americans. They do believe in him. You know, what makes for the fact that there are African-Americans that do believe the Republicans are on the right track?

Brown: [Ohio is] a classic state where the party has to be careful of being seen as too liberal, correct?

Brown: More now with how the convention is being covered and how it’s being seen. We’re joined from the Fleet Center in Boston tonight by Jonah Goldberg, who’s the editor at large or an editor at large for National Review online, which is a terrific read and a contributing editor of National Review.

Note that Brown never identifies Goldberg as a conservative.