It seems to me that there's excessive handwringing in some quarters here about the reception of the convention and of Kerry's speech.
Trust me on this. I've been a student of political conventions for 25 years. Both the convention and Kerry's speech came off extremely well.
Sure, there may be some serious weaknesses or problems with the convention or the speech. But any such real flaws will be exposed by the coming turns (as it were) of the campaign, not by the predictable sneers, jeers, and spin from the GOP and its minions.
Nor does it really mean anything that this commentator said the speech was too fast, or that that one said that Kerry forgot about Iraq, etc etc etc.
Even the many, many serious and smart members of the media, lots of whom were on TV commenting on Kerry's speech, see it as part of their professional duty to be critical.
Is that so wrong?
We may disagree with their criticisms. And we will be mostly right, imho. We may feel that they have been too easy on Bush. And we will certainly be right, imho. But we can't expect them not to be critical!
Fretting about how media commentators fail to see/spin things our way is stupid. And it detracts from the main goal of this site, which is to figure out what is happening, and what we can make happen, in the sphere of POLITICS.
Sure, metacritique of the media is part of this. But only a part, and not the biggest part.
Kerry had a reputation, going into the speech, of being a very bad orator. He did a great job. Is it any surprise that he then got a few mixed to negative reviews along with the (many more) positive ones? How many of those more negative reviews were written before he even gave the speech?
Guess what, most of us--even in Red States--live among plenty of people who MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS.