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GOOD ENOUGH AND THEN SOME. Everyone seems to think that John Kerry is a lousy speaker. In fact, he's quite a good speaker when he has a decent speech to deliver and is in front of a big crowd, where his old-fashioned, stemwinder style doesn't seem too archaic. His speechifying is not terribly well-suited to television, which is an obvious problem in this, the sixth decade of the television age. That didn't matter so muchlast night, though, because he was speaking not to the television cameras directly but rather to the Democratic faithful, with TV simply capturing that.

Kerry got exactly what he needed. He got to introduce himself to that segment of the public that hasn't been paying attention up until now. He put himself forward as a more-than-plausible alternative to George W. Bush. And he managed to humanize himself somewhat, even though he praised his wife with exactly the same solemnity that you might imagine he would use to declare war.

The modern style is to talk, not orate, and to smile often. Kerry orates, and he almost never smiles as he's speaking. But he's learned to compensate for that by grinning broadly whenever heisn't speaking, a technique he used quite effectively in the primary debates last winter. The cameras capture him darkly glowering as he delivers his message, which isn't necessarily a bad thing when he's talking about serious issues. But then he comes off as relaxed and smiling during the pauses.

Last night in the FleetCenter, it seemed like Kerry was rushing his speech, stepping on applause lines, plunging ahead inaudibly as the crowd continued to whoop it up. But later, I watched maybe the first 10 minutes on the C-SPAN replay, and it came across differently. Kerry was miked so that the crowd wasn't nearly as loud. You could hear the cheers, but as background. So although I've heard several commentators say that Kerry was rushing, I'm not sure it came through that way to the viewers at home.

One thing that surprised me was the harsh tone of Kerry's speech. I think it may have been a smart move, but it was also a risky one. The rule of thumb in modern political campaigns is that the candidate takes the high ground while surrogates - the running mate, party officials, and the like - slash and smear. George W. Bush has been doing his share of Kerry-bashing, but he's left the heavy lifting to Dick Cheney and Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie.

The reference to John Ashcroft, in particular, elicited the loudest applause of the speech, matched only - and oddly, I thought - by Kerry's promise to boost stem-cell research. I didn't quite get that. Perhaps, to Democrats, the roadblocks Bush has erected to slow stem-cell research are emblematic of a world view based on his particular religion rather than science, and represent the arrogance of a man who places his personal beliefs above the good of the country. (But that would just be a guess!)

The heavy reliance on military symbolism and the strong emphasis on foreign policy were most un-Democratic. It's possible that it will backfire on Kerry, given the lack of specifics he offered in dealing with the war in Iraq. On the other hand, his handling of the war, should he become president, will be entirely dependent on his negotiations with other countries. We all know that the leaders of those countries would rather deal with Kerry than Bush; but Kerry obviously can't negotiate until he becomes president.

Late last night, I graded Kerry's speech as an A-minus for content and a B for delivery. Now that I've seen that he didn't appear to be rushing things on TV as much as it seemed in the arena, I'll upgrade the latter grade to a B-plus. Not bad. In fact, quite a bit better than not bad.

JULY SURPRISE. TheWashington Post's Howard Kurtzreports that the White House waited to announce the arrest of a major Al Qaeda figure in Pakistan until yesterday at 3 p.m. Kurtz notes that theNew Republic hadoutlined precisely this scenario a few weeks ago.

The only surprise is that this didn't get major coverage the night of Kerry's speech. Either the media were too geared up to change directions, or they're not falling for this garbage anymore. Maybe both. (Correction. It was not the White House that announced the arrest. My error, not Kurtz's.)

IN THE HOUSE. I don't havean Internet connection inside the FleetCenter, so I can't do anyreal-time blogging. But I thought I'd bang out a few observations forlater upload. I'll skip Kerry's speech tonight and deal with that inthe morning.

8:10 p.m. I've been here forabout 15 minutes, high above courtside, stage left and slightlybehind the main podium, surrounded by folks fromSlate and theNew Republic. If anyone tries to leave, he or she won't beable to get back.Slate's Tim Noah has already tried. I amtrying to limit my liquid intake.

Wesley Clark is speaking, and hedelivers a speech heavy on militarism and patriotism. "The flag!"(Wild cheers.) "Enough is enough!" "Under John Kerry ... we're goingto attack and destroy terrorist threats to America!" "America! Hearthis soldier! Choose a leader! ... Protect our liberty! Renew ourspirit!"

8:18 p.m. Joe Liebermanarrives, to the strains of Neil Diamond's "Coming to America." Hemanages not to say, "Is this a great country or what?" He does say ofKerry and Edwards, "They're not just going to win the popular vote,as Al Gore and I did. They're actually going to get to takeoffice."

8:39 p.m. House SpeakerNancy Pelosi is speaking: "Hope reallyis on the way."Groan.

I thought it was funny when theyplayed "Mr. Big Stuff" for Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell lastnight. But why are they playing it for Pelosi?

8:42 p.m. Willie Nelson andan African-American choir sing a song that appears to be called "ThePromised Land." No, not the Bruce Springsteen song of thatname.

Kerry's speech is embargoed, butI'm not posting this until after he delivers it, so what the hell. Itlooks like his refrain will be "America can do better. And help is onthe way." Gee, what happened to "hope is on the way"? Has it alreadyarrived?

8:46 p.m. Former secretaryof state Madeleine Albright is speaking: "He [Kerry] will useintelligence to shape policy, not twist intelligence to justifypolicy."

9:02 p.m. Kerry's speech isgood. And harsh! If his delivery passes muster, it's going to givehim a big boost. Check this out: "I want an America that relies onits own ingenuity and innovation - not the Saudi royal family." Lookfor Prince Bandar to start spinning on the No-Spin Zone, like,tomorrow.

9:11 p.m. John Kennedy onthe video screen while his voice crackles over the PA system: "Letthe word go forth from this time and place ..." The reaction ispretty tepid, and it occurs to me that the whole JFK thing isstarting to sound like my parents' invoking Franklin Roosevelt.Except that FDR had only been gone 20 years when I was 10. If you're10 today, JFK has been gone for nearly 41 years.

No wonder Bill Clinton got a biggerhand than JFK when Clark started rattling off a list of "greatDemocrats."

9:12 p.m. They're projectingon the screen pictures of Republicans who are planning to vote forKerry-Edwards.

9:17 p.m. The late Texascongresswoman Barbara Jordan appears on the big screen.

9:21 p.m. Out come AndreHeinz, Chris Heinz, Vanessa Kerry, and Alexandra Kerry. Of the twodaughters, Vanessa goes first. "There was not one moment when hedoubted his ability to win," she says. Really? Not even in Novemberand December? It's probably true. Politicians are a differentbreed.

She also says that when he told hisdying mother that he would run for president, her response was, "It'sabout time."

Alexandra tells the now-familiarstory of her father administering CPR to Vanessa's hamster its cagehad fallen overboard during a boating trip. "The hamster was neverquite right after that, but he lived." She also recalls what he toldher when she was an angst-ridden 19-year-old: "Remember that you'realive and that you're an American. Those two things make you theluckiest girl in the world."

9:36 p.m. The video beginsto play. Fortunately, I can watch it on a TV in the press row infront of us. It's short - less than 10 minutes. Your typical gauzybio with vaguely patriotic music in the background.

It accomplishes the important taskof going over his war record and anti-war activism, since Kerryhimself is only going to talk about that a little. But wait! Networkcoverage hasn't kicked in. But wait again! They probably wouldn'thave carried it anyway ... on Tuesday, I had to switch to C-SPAN towatch the Teresa video. What can I say? Ilikevideos.

9:47 p.m. A video on the Worcesterfire, and Kerry's involvement in the aftermath.

9:50 p.m. The crews ofKerry's two swiftboats come out. The biggest hand is for JimRassmann, whose life Kerry saved - and who, in turn, saved Kerry'scampaign when he surfaced in Iowa last January. "Nobody asked me tojoin this campaign. I volunteered," says Rassmann, aRepublican.

9:56 p.m. Cleland beginsspeaking from his wheelchair. He talks about being elected to theGeorgia state senate in 1971, a young veteran missing three limbs,and seeing Kerry on television. "He put everything I was feeling intowords," he says. "Even before I met John Kerry, he was mybrother."

10:02 p.m. Cleland hasentered the main part of his speech, just as the networks join us.Tells a story about pressing a Bible into Kerry's hand at Kerry'sSouth Carolina campaign kickoff. "My fellow Americans, John Kerry hasnever let me down, and he won't let you down, either."

11:34 p.m. Just made it backto the filing center. Instant grades: A-minus speech; solid Bdelivery. Much more tomorrow.

KERRY'S LIBERAL APPEAL. It's5:30 p.m. as I finish this. In just a little less than six hours,John Kerry will deliver his acceptance speech - the proverbialmost-important-speech-of-his-life, and one that will go a long waytoward determining whether he can defeat George W. Bush thisfall.

MyPhoenix colleague KristenLombardi and I have stopped by a WiFi-enabled Starbucks afterspending a good part of the afternoon in Cambridge with theCampaignfor America's Future - anumbrella group that brings together various lefty and progressivecauses and organizations. Al Gore was a no-show. His former topcampaign strategist, Donna Brazile, had still not arrived by the timewe had to leave. So the highlight turned out to be the Reverend JesseJackson, who delivered a rambling but occasionally moving speech.(You'll be able to read Lombardi's accounthereonce she's done with it.)

One thing I want to address inthese final hours of the convention is the notion that John Kerry isnothing but a centrist weenie, and that the left will have to pushhim continually if he's elected president. Jackson said as muchtoday, telling the throng, "When Kerry wins, the anti-war movementwill just have to get bigger the next day."

Texas populist Jim Hightower, atlastSunday's tribute to thelate senator Paul Wellstone, got at much the same thing. Speaking ofKerry, Hightower said, "I don't care if he's a sack of cement, we'regoing to carry him to victory" - and, afterwards, be "in their face"to get Kerry and John Edwards to toe the line.

What spurs a lot of this talk, ofcourse, is the experience with Bill Clinton. But Clinton really was acentrist with a lot of conservative impulses. Kerry is not the mostliberal member of the Senate (clickhereto find out why), but he is an actual living, breathing liberal. AsDavid Cornexplained(sub. req.) recently in theNation:

Outside the Wellstone serviceSunday at the Old West Church, Corn told me, "Progressives are goingto vote for Kerry. Bush energizes the base enough that he doesn'thave to worry about that." Corn's analogy is the Republican Party'sextreme right wing in 2000, which swallowed its doubts about Bush'smoderate rhetoric out of a burning desire to recapture the WhiteHouse. (Of course, few knew that Bush would actually govern from theextreme right.)

Corn added of Kerry: "He is not aDLC Democrat," referring to the Democratic Leadership Council, acentrist faction that Clinton once headed. "I don't thinkprogressives have to swallow too hard to see the positive aspects ofa Kerry candidacy," Corn said.

We all know how maddening Kerry canbe - the nuances, the grays, the reluctance to take a clear stand andto stick with it. But when it comes to broad themes, Kerry is a trueliberal - the first to win his party's nomination since WalterMondale in 1984, if you subscribe, as I do, to the theory thatMichael Dukakis in 1988 was more of a proto-New Democrat.

There's been a lot of talk thisweek that the American people are much more liberal than is generallythought. "Most Americans in their hearts are liberal andprogressive," filmmaker Michael Moore told the Campaign for America'sFuture crowd onTuesday.

Tonight, Kerry has a magnificentopportunity to bring those liberals back into the fold - to appeal tothem not as a centrist looking for liberal votes, but as a liberalwho is able to explain himself in mainstream, centrist terms.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'SPHOENIX. George W. Bush hasunitedthe Democrats. But where doJohn Kerry and John Edwards go from here? Also, please check out thePhoenix'scontinuingcoverage of the DemocraticNational Convention.

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF EDWARDS. I'm afraid that I'm developing a John Edwards problem. Last night was only the latest example. Let me explain.

My first exposure to Edwards came four years ago, at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, where the North Carolina senator spoke at a breakfast gathering of the Massachusetts delegates. He struck me as a phony - a slick huckster who'd succeeded in aping every move and mannerism from Bill Clinton except the ability to seem genuine.

I liked him better during his presidential run. Mrs. Media Logloved him, although perhaps that's a problem of a different sort. Still, the stories crept out about his robotic repetition of his "Two Americas" speech at appearance after appearance, his creepy insistence on staying on message no matter what. Yes, you could say that's what he takes for a politician to succeed. But Edwards, uh, lost, you know?

Last night'sspeech was okay, sort of, although it seemed like he managed to say very little, wrapped up in a lot of bland generalities. And how icky was it that the party had passed out "Hope Is on the Way" signs to delegates so that they could wave them whenever Edwards mouthed the words?

I'm sorry, maybe it's because he's such a pretty boy, but I nearly burst out laughing when he looking into the camera and said, "And we will have one clear unmistakable message for Al Qaeda and the rest of these terrorists. You cannot run. You cannot hide. And we will destroy you." What are you going to do, counselor? Sue them?

And don't you think he should have referred to "John Kerry" rather than the overly familiar "John"? Even Teresa called him "John Kerry."

I watched Edwards's speech at Harvard's Kennedy School amid maybe 60 or 70 students and other onlookers. By far the biggest reaction of the evening was for the Reverend Al Sharpton's speech, which wasso moving that you could almost forget what a dubious figure Sharpton really is. Check out how Sharpton closed:

As Sharpton walked off, the sounds of Brother Ray singing "America the Beautiful" played over the PA system. It was a genuine, shivers-up-your-spine moment, akin to Patti LaBelle singing "A Change Is Gonna Come" after Bill Clinton's speech on Monday. Which only served to emphasize how flat Edwards's effort was.

Maybe Edwards didn't want to overshadow John Kerry's big speech tonight. He certainly succeeded. And you can't help but admire his and his wife's resilience following the worst thing that could possibly happen to a parent.

But if you're looking for a running mate who'd bring substance and gravitas to the table, who could unquestionably step in as president on a moment's notice ... well, boring old Dick Gephardt is starting to look pretty good right now.

RACE, RAPE, AND IMUS. This one's for you, Philip Nobile. For several years, the formerNew York magazine media critic hasrailed against the racist content of Don Imus's New York-based syndicated radio program. I always thought Nobile had a tin ear and just didn't get the humor. And I haven't changed my mind - at least not generally.

But this morning, sidekick Bernard McGuirk said something that ought to get him suspended for, oh, I don't know, six months - or six years. I was driving and not taking notes, so bear with me. (Imus in the Morning is heard locally on WTKK Radio, 96.9 FM.) At about 9:15 a.m., the gang started talking about the Kobe Bryant rape trial. McGuirk called Bryant's accuser a "skanky ho." Some discussion ensued as to whether Bryant might actually be guilty, the morals of his accuser aside.

Then, incredibly, McGuirk asserted that regardless of Bryant's guilt or lack thereof, this was obviously not a "classic" rape - which he proceeded to define asa black man in a hood assaulting and raping a white woman. Imus did his usual, acting half-bemused, half-appalled, and complaining that McGuirk and another sidekick, Sid Rosenberg, were behaving badly.

A commercial break followed. I sat in the parking lot, waiting to hear what would happen when they returned. Imus again chuckled about McGuirk and Rosenberg's behavior, then started talking aboutNew York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's new book. No apology.

In the past year in Boston, WEEI Radio (AM 850) hosts John Dennis and Gerry Callahan were suspended for comparing anescaped gorilla to black schoolchildren, and WTKK host Mike Barnicle apologized for using the phrase"jungle fever" to describe the marriage of former Boston television personality Janet Langhart, who's black, and former secretary of defense William Cohen, who's white.

Yesterday Callie Crossley, a television producer who's African-American, cited those incidents as evidence of Boston's improved-but-still-troubled racial climate.Read it. (Disclosure: Crossley and I often appear together on WGBH-TV/Channel 2's "Beat the Press" edition ofGreater Boston, on Fridays at 7 p.m.)

But will anything happen to McGuirk, or to his enabler, Imus? This isn't a Boston problem - it's a New York problem, exacerbated by conglomerate radio ownership that brings this into cities across the country. What McGuirk said was far worse than Barnicle's utterance, and at least as bad as Dennis and Callahan's exchange.

I would say "where is the outrage?", except that this only took place two hours ago. Will New York take action? If not, will WTKK general manager Matt Mills do anything locally? I'll be watching. You should too.

BRASS KNUCKLES.I'm watchingthe convention at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, which isholding a convention party every night. There's free WiFi, so Ifigured I'd post a quick item. Al Sharpton got a huge reaction fromthe students. But obviously the most important message of the evening- other than John Edwards's upcoming speech - is themilitary.

Not only did retired generals JohnShalikashvili and Claudia Kennedy speak, but they trotted out a bunchof military officers ... right after 10 p.m., to make sure networkcoverage had kicked in. Smart. If Bush and Cheney are going to turnthis into a war election, you've got to have some brass on yourside.

Cate Edwards is speaking now. GoodLord ... she's as pretty as her father. Going to post this quickly,because Elizabeth Edwards is walking to the podium.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, TOURIST ATTRACTION. It was time for a commercial break. While Chris Matthews waited to go back on the air, he asked the crowd of several hundred people who were gathered around the MSNBC tent what they thought of Teresa Heinz Kerry's speech the previous night. Cheers went up. Matthews kept pushing.

"You're all sophisticated city people. Do you think she'll play in Peoria?" he asked. "Yes! Yes!" came the response.

Among the curiosities that the Democratic National Convention has brought to Boston this week isHardball, which has set up operations right outside Quincy Market. MSNBC may be the least-watched cable news channel, but the fascination with television is universal. The program is blasted out of loudspeakers so the crowd can hear, punctuated by the sound of military helicopters overhead. (Read Mike Miliard'sno-bullshit account about what happened on Tuesday night.)

"Coming up, Congressman Charles Rangel of New York," Matthews announces. And there, near the barrier separating the set from the crowd, is Rangel, resplendent in a dark suit and red tie. He hands out MSNBC ballcaps as the crowd cheers - but not quite loud enough for a producer, who strides briskly along the barrier ordering louder applause.

When they come back, Rangel - a combat veteran of the Korean War - offers a sharp critique of the war in Iraq. He blasts Bush for sending young soldiers into Iraq despite having "no plan at all." Rangel blames the war on a host of familiar names - "Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Kristol, Cheney."

Matthews interjects: "How come we never hear your candidate speak like you are now? He waffles, he hedges."

Rangel parries the question and runs out the clock. Soon enough, it would be time for another commercial.

NO-READING ZONE. Four yearsago - I think it was at the Republican National Convention inPhiladelphia, but it might have been at the DNC in Los Angeles - mythen-Phoenix colleague Seth Gitell and I were walking throughthe media center. A little while earlier we'd been writing pieces forBostonPhoenix.com.Now we were checking out the media circus before doing whatever itwas we were going to do with the rest of the day.

But rather than having a few casualconversations with other journalists, we saw that everyone waschained to his or her keyboard, pounding away. I stopped by theWashington Post's space so I could say hello to media reporterHoward Kurtz, whom I know slightly. We politely exchanged a fewpleasantries before he returned to his seat and started typing again.He was writing twice a day for thePost's website plus oncefor the paper. He looked like a haunted, exhausted man.

Seth is now the spokesman for MayorTom Menino, but I'm still here, writing more than ever. For those ofus in the print media, especially, technology has drastically changedthe way we do our jobs. When I covered my first convention, theRepublican gathering in San Diego in 1996, I had one story to writefor thePhoenix, one short piece I'd contracted to do forSalon, and that was it. I could actually relax and take it allin. At the conventions of 2000, I was up to one Web piece a day inaddition to my piece for the print edition. Now I'm updating MediaLog several times a day. Many journalists I know are doing thesame.

My heart sinks when I grab theBoston Globe and theNew York Times from my doorstep inthe morning. Most of what I see is for pure political and mediajunkies like me, and I could easily spend hours poring over it. But Ican't. Who can? We've all got to get back to work.

So much output, so little input.There's a price to be paid for all this, and that is that there'sless time to think, less time to read, less time to talk with smartpeople without try to wheedle a quote out of them that you can usewithin the next hour. There is no news taking place in Boston. Itought to be a chance to listen and learn, and to get ready for thecampaign ahead.

But that's not the way it worksanymore. Instead, we've got thousands of journalists producingnon-news from a convention whose work, such as it is, was preordainedon Super Tuesday, way back last March.

RIVERS WHACKS JACKSON(AGAIN). TheBoston Herald today blows out the front onthe Reverend Jesse Jackson'scriticismof Boston. Reporter Maggie Mulvihill quotes the Reverend EugeneRivers as saying of Jackson, "Jesse's talking trash and blowingsmoke. This is Jesse's showboat."

As Mulvihill notes, Rivers is "oneof the city's most respected leaders on racial issues." However, heis also a long-standing Jackson critic. In fact, three and a halfyears ago, there were even rumors that Rivers had something to dowith exposing an extramarital affair Jackson had had - rumors thatRivers denied.

DEPT. OF SELF-PROMOTION.PR Weekinterviewsme about Media Log in itsJuly 26 edition. Also, Timothy Noah ofSlatetookodds on how long BillClinton would speak on Monday night. As you'll see, I was toopessimistic, but what the hell - there was no prize.

DEPT. OF NON-SELF-PROMOTION.Speaking of everybody's writing, if you visit Media Log directlywithout going to BostonPhoenix.com first, well,takea look.Phoenixstaffers have been posting like crazed weasels sinceMonday.

FUN - AND MEDIA-BASHING - WITHHOWARD AND MICHAEL. The line snaked from the front of the RoyalSonesta Hotel, on Land Boulevard in Cambridge, around the corner, andway, way back down Cambridge Parkway. I had no way of measuring it,but it might have stretched half a mile.

These were the Deaniacs, mostlyyoung, waiting to see Howard Dean, the man they had tried to getelected president, and filmmaker Michael Moore. You could even hearcelebrity Dean supporter Joan Jett singing "I Love Rock & Roll"from somewhere amid the boats floating on the Charles. Was it her, orwas it a boombox?

The afternoon event, sponsored bythe progressiveCampaignfor America's Future, wasnot a masterpiece of planning. It was hardly surprising that manyhundreds of people would turn out to see perhaps the two biggestcelebrities on the American left. As it was, only a fraction of thosehoping to get inside were allowed to squeeze into the second-floormeeting room where the event was held.

Those of us in the media, notsurprisingly, were well treated, given good seats with a decent view.We soon learned why: we were the main course.

Dean, the former Vermont governor,went first. These days he's running something calledDemocracyfor America, an outgrowthof his campaign organization, Dean for America, that is working toelect local progressive candidates across the country - even acandidate for library trustee. "I like to think library trustee is apretty important position in an administration where they likebook-burning better than reading books," Dean said. (Media Logguarantee: all quotes are 95 percent accurate. Both Dean and Mooretalked so fast, and the cheering was so loud, that I may be takingslight liberties.)

After a bit, Dean turned hisattention to Teresa Heinz Kerry's telling a reporter for thePittsburgh Tribune Review to "shove it," and asked, "How manyof you would like to tell reporters to shove it?" Whoops and hollersall around. Dean then told the crowd that theTribune Reviewis owned by right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife. "That," Deansaid, "even tops theBoston Herald," which he compared to "theNational Enquirer."

Not that theHerald doesn'toften deserve it, although theNew York Post would be a moreaccurate, and somewhat kinder, comparison. Later, though, anotherspeaker later noted that a Republican official had recently denouncedMichael Moore as being part of the "hate and vitriol from this JohnKerry celebrity set." The source: a July 22 story in theHerald by Dave Wedge. Only no credit was given.

Moore was running a good hour late,and other speakers, including former secretary of labor Robert Reich,filled the time. Finally, following an awkward pause created by whatwas apparently a pit stop to the men's room, Moore bounded on stage,blasting the media for failing to report on weak evidence underlyingthe Bush administration's case for the war in Iraq.

Conceding that George W. Bush isthe villain of his filmFahrenheit9/11, Moore continuedthat "there is an unstated villain in the film, and that's thenational media.... The film outs them. It outs them as shills for theBush administration. It outs them as cheerleaders for this war." Andthis admonition: "You can ask any question you want and not bearrested. So what has prevented you from asking the questions? Youhaven't just been embedded. You've been in bed with the wrongpeople."

At one point, Moore quipped, "I'mnot picking on the press here today. I'm sure they'll kick the pissout of me later." Well, not here. Certainly not when Moore went on topoint out that General Electric, which owns NBC, has $600 millionworth of contracts in Iraq, making them "war profiteers." (That'sharsh, but it's certainly true that NBC News's corporate parent has adirect interest in not crossing the White House on the war. How comeTom Brokaw doesn't tell us that?) Or how about Moore'scontentionthat Disney, which refused to distributeFahrenheit 9/11,turns out to have accepted a $300 million bailout from a member ofthe Saudi royal family for EuroDisney ... brokered by theBush-connected Carlyle Group. A splendid story for Peter Jennings,whose employer, ABC News, is part of the Disney family.

Moore also urged progressives towork for the Kerry-Edwards ticket, saying of the Bushies, "They'renot going to go without a fight, and believe me, they are betterfighters than we are. They are up at six in the morning trying todecide which minority group to screw today. Our side, we never seesix in the morning. Unless we've been up all night."

Dean and Moore were both terrific,full of fire and passion, bringing their supporters to their feetrepeatedly. Dean was as unpresidential as ever, which was a reminderof why - once the caucuses and primaries started - almost no oneactuallyvoted for him. But he remains the guy who energizedthe Democratic Party, who dared speak out about the Bushadministration's depredations when most Democrats were hiding undertheir beds, terrified they would be accused of lackingpatriotism.

As for Moore,Fahrenheit9/11 isn't perfect, but it's been unfairly caricatured as nothingbut a factually deficient exercise in Bush-bashing. The truth is thatit is a deeply moralstatementabout America in 2004. No wonder the Republicans are so eager to tearit down.

TED K., "PERFECT BASTARD."NowtheseTeresa Heinz Kerry quotes, reported by David Guarino in today'sBoston Herald, are far more entertaining than a mere "shoveit." Even if they are 30 years old.

THE KING OF VOX POP. For all of Bill Clinton's prancing and preening last night about his own eight years in the White House, what really made hisspeech extraordinary were the touches of self-deprecation. Listening to him talk of his new-found wealth, he sounded for all the world like Bruce Springsteen singing about being "a rich man in a poor man's shirt." And he used it to great effect in criticizing the disastrous economic policies of George W. Bush:

But that was just a warm-up for the main event: Clinton's praise of John Kerry's military service, framed in the context of his own - and Bush's and Dick Cheney's - well-known desire not to fight in the Vietnam War:

The "send me" refrain became kind of a call-and-response exchange with the audience. It was remarkably effective, and the Kerry campaign couldn't have asked for a better introduction to its candidate on network television in prime time. Hillary Clinton's introduction was good, and she is obviously a much less wooden speaker than she was during her 2000 Senate campaign. Al Gore was warm, funny, and human. But Clinton - as he has been in Democratic circles since 1992 - was the undisputed star of the night.

One touch of irony: despite the self-deprecation, despite the strong words of praise for Kerry, Clinton still showed him up by demonstrating that he is the best communicator in politics, and the one towering figure within the Democratic Party. Maybe he can't help it - he's just too good. But Clinton didn't make it any easier for Kerry to get out from under the Clinton shadow.

I sat next toSlate's Will Saletan last night, surrounded by otherSlate-sters andNew Republic staffers. Anyway,here is Saletan's take on the proceedings.

SCAIFE'S LONG REACH.Here is thePittsburgh Tribune-Review's coverage of Teresa Heinz Kerry's "shove it" blast at the paper's right-wing editorial-page editor, Colin McNickle. McNickle is writing ablog from Boston, but has not yet weighed in on his exchange with Heinz Kerry.

While everyone is a-twitter over Heinz Kerry's outburst, what's almost forgotten is that theTribune-Review's owner, billionaire right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife, oncecalled a female reporter a "fucking communist cunt."

Granted, a would-be first lady needs to watch her language more than Scaife does. (Not that "shove it" qualifies as being much worse than "I'm not going to answer your question.") But Media Log thought you'd like a reminder as to whom she was telling off.

GAY MARRIAGE AND DEMOCRATS.Bennett Lawson is a young gay man from Chicago. An aide to hishometown Democratic congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky, Bennett has cometo Boston this week to do volunteer outreach to thegay/ lesbian/ bisexual/ transgender community. At around 1 p.m. today hewas standing outside a conference room at the Sheraton, where theGLBT caucus was holding a standing-room-only meeting. His job was toguard what looked like hundreds of bag lunches prepared for thoseattending the caucus.

I wanted to ask Lawson about arather unusual phenomenon: the passionate support that gay andlesbian activists have for same-sex marriage, and their seeminglyequally passionate support for John Kerry, even though both he andGeorge W. Bush oppose gay marriage.

Of course, I'm being deliberatelydisingenuous in phrasing it that way. Yes, Kerry opposes gaymarriage, but he also recently voted against a constitutionalamendment that would ban gay marriage, an amendment pushed by noneother than Bush. Kerry also voted against the Defense of Marriage Actin 1996, a nasty law that was happily signed by Bill Clinton. Still -aren't folks like Lawson just a wee bit put off by Kerry's lack ofsupport for one of the gay community's principal issues?

"He's running nationwide in acountry that is not exactly comfortable with gay marriage," Lawsonreplied. "His record is very, very strong on gay issues. Every goodliberal has to moderate things in order to run nationwide - or, inIllinois, to run statewide - but his record really speaks foritself."

I told Lawson that he sounded likehe didn't believe Kerry when he says he genuinely opposes same-sexmarriage. "No," he replied, laughing. "You know what? I don't." Andsince Kerry supports civil unions, with all the rights, benefits, andresponsibilities of marriage, that's good enough for Lawson.

Still, Lawson is less than thrilledat the notion that the Democratic Party establishment would preferthat gay and lesbian voters support Kerry without making too much ofa fuss. "I would like to hear the word 'gay' a lot more than I'mhearing," he said. "At the same time, I don't know what thatgains."

Shortly before I spoke with Lawson,California senator Barbara Boxer addressed the GLBT caucus. "GeorgeBush has decided that, this year, you're the scapegoat, and I'm hereto tell you that you're not the scapegoat," she told the crowd. Sheraised the specter of a re-elected Bush getting the opportunity toname as many as four Supreme Court justices, and observed thatCongress rushed to judgment on the anti-gay-marriage amendment evenas a number of homeland-security bills sit unacted upon."They knewthey didn't have a chance to pass it, and thank you for all the workthat you did," Boxer said, but added: "This hurtful campaign isn'tgoing away. They've just begun."

Given the wildly enthusiasticreception accorded Boxer, I was surprised to learn that her stand onsame-sex marriage is exactly the same as Kerry's. In a briefinterview, conducted on the run as she headed off to anotherengagement, Boxer told me that she favors domestic partnerships andcivil unions with all the rights of marriage, but not marriageitself. When I sought to clarify by asking her whether shespecifically opposed gay marriage, she responded that she wouldrather stress what she's for rather than what she'sagainst.

I also asked her if she wasconcerned that, despite Kerry's official opposition to gay marriage,the Republicans would seek use the enthusiasm of Kerry's gay,pro-marriage supporters against him. Her response: "If they want todo that, I think they would be making a terrible mistake."

It's pretty obvious that gay andlesbian activists such as Lawson believe Kerry, Boxer,et al.are being deliberately cynical about their true feelings when itcomes to same-sex marriage. Ironically, so do Karl Rove and company.Whether Kerry's inner self supports gay marriage or not, he's clearlywalking a very narrow path on the hottest of hot-buttonissues.

Personally, I'd love to see himcome out and declare forthrightly that same-sex couples should beallowed to marry. But at the very least, he's decided that that wouldamount of a political suicide note. And maybe he even thinks it wouldbe wrong.

TRAFFIC TERRORISM WORKS! AsMedia Log predicted some time ago, Boston and the roads leading intoit are virtually empty today. I zoomed in from the Far North in abouta half-hour, and had my choice of parking spaces at the PrudentialCenter, where I'm covering a gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender eventat the Sheraton.

REMEMBERING PAUL WELLSTONE.From the time he entered the Senate, Paul Wellstone was someoneabout whom I was aware, if not particularly familiar. My first realexposure to him came during the 2000 presidential campaign. Wellstonewas supporting Democratic candidate Bill Bradley, who struck me as apriggish jerk. Bradley couldn't make it onto one of the talking-headsshows, so Wellstone filled in. It was a revelation. He was smart,funny, charming, self-deprecating, and every bit the progressive thatBradley only pretended to be.

A little more than two years later,Wellstone died in a plane crash while campaigning for re-election inMinnesota. It was a tragedy that redounded doubly to the Republicans'benefit when they and their conservative media allies (Rush Limbaugh,Fox News) grotesquely exaggerated a few partisan moments that tookplace at Wellstone's memorial service.

Late Sunday afternoon, I dropped bythe Old West Church, a few blocks from Government Center, to attend aWellstone remembrance to benefit the Union of Minority Neighborhoodsand Massachusetts Jobs with Justice. Several hundred people werejammed inside as the likes of Al Franken, Arianna Huffington, JimHightower, and Boston city councilor Chuck Turner paid tribute to themost progressive member of the Senate. Neither Boston daily coveredthe event. No, it wasn't newsworthy, but neither were the dozens ofparties that theGlobe and theHerald reported ontoday. For that matter, neither is the convention itself, unless youthink there is some chance that the delegates are going to choose aticket other than John Kerry and John Edwards.

The most noteworthy aspect of thetribute was the way that what one observer called "the responsibleleft and the looney left" invoked Wellstone's memory to advance theirparticular agenda. Franken, Huffington, and Hightower - theresponsible left (and Franken isn't all that left) - insisted thatWellstone would be working hard for Kerry.

Indeed, Huffington, who got a bigassist from Wellstone in organizing the lefty Shadow Conventions atthe Democratic and Republican conventions four years ago, went so faras to say that Wellstone wouldn't have evenwanted a ShadowConvention at the DNC this year, so committed would he have been toelecting Kerry and defeating George W. Bush. "When your house is onfire, it's not the time for remodeling," she said.

Franken followed a rousing call byCalifornia congresswoman Barbara Lee to bring the troops home byarguing that that's "easier said than done," noting that Secretary ofState Colin Powell had warned Bush that if he invaded Iraq, "Youbreak it, you own it." He also puckishly suggested that Kerry recycleone of Bush's 2000 campaign slogans - "I'm a uniter, not a divider" -with the difference being that Kerry could actually meanit.

Yet the uneasy alliance between theDemocratic Party and the far left was laid bare by Turner - and theraucous applause he received for his extremist remarks. Turner - lastseen unveilingporno shots at City Hall andclaiming they depicted American troops raping Iraqi women - comparedWellstone to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., quoting King assaying, "We have to get rid of militarism, materialism, and racism ifwe are to be a whole and healthy country."

So far, so good. But then Turnerasserted that King "was killed by government forces.... I believe it.Hopefully you believe it." Now it's true that conspiracy theoriesabound about King's assassination, and that the King family itselfbelieves them. But all credible evidence points to the guilt of onelone racist, James Earl Ray. Never mind. The crowdapplauded.

Turner continued: "Brothers andsisters, let's be real. The military-industrial complex has controlof both parties." More loud applause. Okay, I suppose you could makethe point with Halliburton. Butboth parties? The Democratsare not pure, but come on.

Turner also accused Kerry, likeBill Clinton, of being "controlled" by the Democratic LeadershipCouncil, a "New Democrat" group of moderate centrists. "Kerry isn'tprepared - mentally, emotionally, spiritually - to be the presidentwe need," said Turner, arguing that though he supports Kerry'selection, progressives will have to pressure him from the left if hebecomes president. Now, Kerry isn't Wellstone, but he's considerablymore liberal than Clinton.

"We can purge the cancer from thesoul of the body politic," Turner said. And, returning to the Kingtheme, he concluded, "If there's nothing worth living for, there'snothing worth dying for." The applause was loud and intense,punctuated by a few dozen people giving him a standingovation.

Turner's remarks representedexactly what Kerry doesn't need if he's going to defeat Bush: ahard-left wing supporting him while simultaneously hectoring him,overladen with anger and conspiracy theories. It's too bad PaulWellstone wasn't there to stand up to Turner's stridency.

MORE ALLEGED NEWS. Will thedinosaurs of broadcast journalism please stop whining about the factthat the networks are showing only three hours of the Democraticconvention this week? PBS's Jim Lehrer was aghast at Sunday'sShorenstein Center get-together, as Mark Jurkowitzreportsin today'sBoston Globe.

To which I say: the networks shouldcover news, and there is no news to be made this week. Conventionsused to pick the candidates; now primary voters and caucus-goers dothat. Why there needs to be obligatory coverage of anything otherthan the speeches of the presidential and vice-presidential speechesis beyond me.

Lehrer called the DNC "four of theeight most important days we can possibly have as a nation." GoodLord! Not even close. The debates - which you'd think Lehrer mighthave some recollection of, given that he's passively presided over afew of them - are infinitely more important.

Today people have choices. Anenormous amount of convention coverage is being carried by CNN,MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, and, for those who don't get cable, Lehrer'sown PBS. Essentially Lehrer is arguing that viewers should beforced to watch an infomercial. Gee, maybe the off switchcould be remotely disabled this week as well.

THE RIGHT WING AND THE NETWORKNEWSCASTS. Do the major network newscasts bend in the face of conservative and corporate pressure? At a panel discussion on Sunday at Harvard's Kennedy School, the Big Three news anchors - Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings - all said no. But they admitted that the pressure is real, and is something they feel.

It was Rather who broached the topic. As he put it, there are certain types of stories where "you can't afford to be wrong," adding, "That can be a positive or it can be a negative." If it means more checking or possibly holding a story for a day, he explained, that could be a good thing. But, he warned, someone inside the network might kill it, saying, "You know what? This story is going to be trouble with a capital 'T.'"

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw followed Rather by observing that the pressure has always been there. But now, he said, it's easier to apply that pressure - "just flip a switch" and the e-mails come flooding in, spurred by conservative media activists likeBrent Bozell. Brokaw added that he has someone screen his e-mails for him - he deliberately avoids wading through all of them himself lest he be overly influenced.

Which led Jennings to walk up closest to the edge of admitting that, yes, conservative groupsdo influence the news. "I hear more about conservative concerns than I did in the past," Jennings said. Just recently, he said, a man walked up to him and yelled, "America-hater, leave the country immediately!" This "wave of resentment," Jennings said, has found its way to "the corporate suite" and to advertisers, which these days are urging greater caution.

It was an enlightening moment. But the crack Jennings had opened was closed quickly. Rather responded to Jennings's remarks by saying that he hasnever gotten any pressure to change the content of his newscast. "At CBS I have not felt this one iota," he said. To which Jennings chimed in, "My boss has been terrific, too ... 100 percent supportive.... But I feel the pressure of the anger all the time."

And Brokaw slammed the door shut by observing that conservative voices were almost never heard in the 1960s, leading to the culture of resentment that prevails among those on the right today. So there you have it: the conservatives are angry, and they attempt to use their power to influence the evening newscasts. America's best-known anchors acknowledge the anger, feel the pressure, and, in Jennings's case, admit that the corporate bosses and the advertisers would rather appease the right-wingers than tell them to shut up and go away. But none of this, we are to understand, actually has an effect on the nightly news.

What's frightening about this is the Big Three might actually be right. It may be that their prestige and long record of accomplishment allows them to protect their newscasts from the crassest of market and political pressures. Once they pass from the scene - and Brokaw's retirement has already been scheduled, with Rather and Jennings perhaps to leave before the 2008 election - who's to say whether their successors will be able (or be allowed) to take the heat?

Sunday's event was sponsored by the Kennedy School's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. Center director Alex Jones moderated, and pushed the participants hard. Jones began by asking whether they should do a better job of pointing out when politicians and public officials are not telling the truth. You can't do "he said/she said," Jones noted, when people are saying things that "aren't true."

"It's not my job to say, 'Candidate Y is lying,'" Rather replied, explaining his job is to report that one person said this, one person said that, and here are the facts.

But is that really the case? AsNew York Times columnist Paul Krugman and others have noted, major news organizations in 2000 repeatedly allowed then-candidate George W. Bush to deny Al Gore's claim that Bush's proposed tax cut would disproporationately benefit the wealthy. The problem, of course, was that Gore was right on the mark and Bush was - well, lying.

If anything, Jim Lehrer, the anchor for PBS'sThe NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, was even more emphatic than Rather. The mild-mannered Lehrer said, "I am never tempted to yell, 'Liar!'", making his point so loudly that the audience burst out laughing. He added, "I am not a lie-detector machine, that is not my function.... There are very few things that are black and white.... For journalists to declare, 'This guy is a liar and that guy is not a liar' is risky business, and those of us in the mainstream don't do it."

The fifth member of the panel, Judy Woodruff, anchor of CNN'sInside Politics, expanded on Lehrer's point, saying, "Politicians have always shaded the truth." Her examples: Franklin Roosevelt's promise to balance the budget, John Kennedy's fear-mongering about a phony "missile gap," and Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War. Much of what politicians say is "shaded," she said, noting that a point about the economy will be made on the basis of wages or household income depending on which is more supportive of that point.

To which a somewhat exasperated Jones replied, "If everything is true, then where am I?"

What Jones was driving at, though he didn't say the word, was that there are real limits to that old-fashioned concept of "objectivity." Journalists are used to covering "both" sides (as if there was always a duopoly when it comes to the matter of sides), and letting the reader or viewer or listener sort it out. But what qualifications does a news consumer have to sort things out? If Bush - or, for that matter, John Kerry - is clearly lying, isn't it better for Dan Rather totell his 10 million or so viewers rather than to require that they figure it out for themselves?

Another way of getting at this was articulated by Democratic congresswoman Anna Eshoo, of California, who asked whether the networks could have done anything differently in the run-up to the war on Iraq. Rather replied that when the president tells the public that there is a direct threat to their security, there is "heavy prejudice" to take him at his word. "I'm not apologizing" for that presumption, Rather said, but allowed that tougher questions should have been asked. Added Brokaw: "It was our responsibility to put up more caution signs than we did."

Jennings, by contrast, said that ABC News - and especiallyNightline - repeatedly pointed out how little evidence there was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda.

Granted, there is no way the network newscasts could have prevented Bush from going to war, even though, with their combined audience of 20 million to 30 million viewers per night, they remain the largest, most influential news media in the country. And as Rather properly observed, this was not a story that could have been reported independently: reporters could not travel to Iraq and determine whether Saddam Hussein had WMD. Remember, the UN had an entire team of inspectors swarming across the country, and they were unable to reach any definitive conclusions in the short time that Bush gave them before going to war.

But even theNew York Times has acknowledged that it was too credulous in its coverage of the White House's claims about Iraq. It was not a shining moment for the media.

BUSH TO FOREIGN REPORTERS:SCREW! The international media have been notably critical of the Bush administration for thumbing its nose as the world before, during, and after the war in Iraq. Well, the Bushies know how to get even.

According toMediaNation - a joint project of Harvard's Nieman Foundation and UMass Boston - the White House hascut the $15,000 to $25,000 normally budgeted for helping some 400 foreign reporters navigate the two political conventions.

The story, by Seth Effron, will likely appear inMediaNation's print debut, in tomorrow'sBoston Globe. But you can read it now.

IS THIS ANY WAY TO RUN ACONVENTION? After getting my credentials, I decided to check out the media center at the DNC this afternoon. Big mistake! I couldn't get my umbrella through security; an apologetic guard told me umbrellas have been classified as contraband, but that I could get it back at a table on the way out. (Wrong.)

Then, no one seemed to know how to find the media filing center for reporters who are not affiliated with large organizations that are renting their own space. A few of us finally located it, on the third floor of the FleetCenter (nice, actually, since the big orgs are stuck in a tent outside), but some techs were still setting up the Ethernet network.

So my plan to blog earlier today was put off till this evening, when I was able to get onto the Net from a Starbucks in Harvard Square.

THE DIVIDED ELECTORATE. More evidence that this year's election may be about the passionate base of each party rather than swing voters: the latestNew York Times/CBS Newspoll, which shows that 79 percent of potential voters have already made up their minds, up from 64 percent at the same stage of the campaign four years ago.Times reporter Robin Toner writes:

Which is why Franklin Foer'sNew Republicpiece (sub. req.) on consultant Bob Shrum's takeover of the Democratic Party, and of the Kerry campaign, raises some worries about Kerry's chances. Foer's main point about Shrum is that he's not as bad as you've heard. (Well, that's a relief!) But his secondary point is that Shrum is a master of focus groups and day-to-day tactics, not strategy and vision. Foer observes:

Of course, if ever there was a candidate who needed help in crafting his million-and-one policy ideas into a grand strategy, it's John Kerry. But given that Shrum also has a reputation for not playing well with others, it may become difficult for the campaign to reach out and help Kerry translate his myriad little thoughts into two or three Big Thoughts.

MEDIA! CELEBS! (WELL ...) FOOD! BOOZE!Nice to see the new South Boston convention center filled last night at theBoston Globe-sponsored media party. It could be a while before it's filled again. It would have been a great place for the Democratic National Convention. Why didn't somebody think of that?

The celebrity-journalist quotient was rather low, which may have had something to do with the fact that it was held on Saturday rather than Sunday, when much of the media arrives. The Reverend Jesse Jackson and Bill Russell were there, and Little Richard performed. The most notable media celeb I ran into wasNew York Times columnist David Brooks, a nice guy whose very aura exudes "Not a Media Celeb."

TheGlobe spent a reported $500,000 on the party. The food was great and the booze was free - wasted on those of us who had to drive home. The best-line-of-the-night award goes to WLVI-TV (Channel 56) political analyst Jon Keller, whotold theGlobe's Geoff Edgers: "It's a good marketing ploy for the convention center, and I thank theGlobe for the free beer, but Ferris wheels and open bars are a dangerous combination."

THE CLINTON NON-SCANDALS REVISITED.A confession: the scales didn'tfallfrom my eyes untilSeptember 1998, when Bill Clinton's nemesis, special prosecutor KenStarr, issued his pornographic report. Up until then, I had actuallybelieved that Starr would somehow tie the Monica Lewinsky matter toWhitewater. My favorite theory was that Clinton associate VernonJordan, who had attempted to find a job for Lewinsky, could bepressured into testifying about what if any favors he had done forClinton's crooked friendWebsterHubbell, who wasmaintaining his silence from his prison cell.

The Starr Report removed all suchillusions. Suddenly, the entire country knew (and believe me, thecountry was ahead of most of us in the media) that the president wasbeing pursued by an out-of-control right-wing extremist whoseobsession with sex revealed a highly disturbed mind. The fever broke,and Clinton's presidency survived, though it was permanentlyweakened.

Those events still seem so recent -and so irrelevant following 9/11 - that I wasn't sure I wanted torelive them. But on Friday evening, I saw a new documentary about theClinton non-scandals by Clinton buddy Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry,TheHunting of the President,at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Based on Joe Conason and Gene Lyons'sbookThe Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to DestroyBill Clinton, the film is flawed, and it's difficult to see whereit's going to find an audience.Fahrenheit 9/11 it isn't. Yetit does manage to bring home in an occasionally powerful way themadness that gripped the media and political worlds before and duringClinton's presidency, all of it driven by - as Hillary Clintonmemorably called it - the vast right-wing conspiracy.

First, the flaws. I nearly laughedwhen, near the beginning, journalist-turned-Clinton-aide SidneyBlumenthal smugly explained that the right decided to destroy Clintonbecause it feared the change he represented. You may recall thatduring his first two years in the White House, Clinton bet hispresidency on forming alliances with corrupt hacks like DanRostenkowski, who eventually went to prison. Later Clinton hooked upwith such noted reformers as Dick Morris. Clinton's alleged reformistzeal couldn't have been detected with a microscope. If hehadbeen more of a reformer, he might have made more of amark.

Also, Thomason and Perry don'ttrust the audience's attention span.The Hunting of thePresident is edited as though it were made for MTV, withhead-whipping scene changes and a liberal use of clips from oldblack-and-white movies to inject a note of fun into the proceedings.It doesn't work.

But there is much of value here, asThomason and Perry meticulously recount the Arkansas branch of theClinton scandals, none of which ever amounted to a damn thing. Mostimportant, we see Ken Starr for what he was: a politically motivatedRepublican activist, an ideological extremist with absolutely nointegrity. It is amazing that, to this day, Starr has not beendisbarred or otherwise sanctioned for his grotesque abuse of office.Far from it: in April, Starr was nameddeanof Pepperdine University's school of law, an institution that hasbenefited from the generosity of another right-wing extremist andfellow-traveler in the Arkansas wars, Richard Mellon Scaife. It's ajob that Starr nearly took in the middle of the Whitewaterinvestigation. Too bad he didn't.

The undisputed star ofTheHunting of the President is Susan McDougal, the woman who wouldnot lie. In a long, emotional interview, McDougal recounts how herex-husband, the late Jim McDougal, terrified of being sent to prison,urged her to go along with Starr and his gang, who were trying to gether to fabricate a story and testify about illegal business dealingswith Bill and/or Hillary Clinton. She recalls her ex-husband tellingher, "They'll give you the story - you don't have to worry about it."She wouldn't do it, and she served hard time for that refusal, beingimprisoned in a ward for child-killing mothers, locked in a cage onbus on the way to court appearances as male prisoners masturbated infront of her and urinated on her.

Dan Moldea, theauthorofA Washington Tragedy: How the Death of Vincent Foster Ignited aPolitical Firestorm, expresses disgust to Thomason and Perryabout the media's complicity in amplifying Starr's leaks in order tomove the scandal forward, calling it "the most corrupt journalism"he'd ever seen.Newsweek's Jonathan Alter talks about howsocially unacceptable it was within media circles for a journalist towrite or say anything positive about the Clintons. TheWashingtonPost's Howard Kurtz recalls the media burying a story about theClintons' being cleared of some fairly serious Whitewaterallegations.

The Hunting of the Presidentbegins and ends with Arkansas senator Dale Bumpers's memorable speechduring Clinton's Senate impeachment trial, in which he said, "Whenthey say it's not about sex, it's about sex." That would be badenough. The deeper truth, though, is that it wasn't even about sex.It was about getting Clinton by any means necessary.

It's impossible to know whetherClinton could have been a great president, but we do know this: giventhe 10-year-long witch hunt devoted to destroying him and his wife,he really never had a chance to do much more than hang on andsurvive.

And Clinton's enemies on the rightand in the media are still at large. They helped destroy Al Gore'scampaign four years ago, and they're primed to go after John Kerrytoday. Amid the celebrating in Boston this coming week, Kerry'sstrategists had better be ready for what's to come. Because Scaife,Starr, and their fellow right-wing thugs make Karl Rove look like aweenie.

NO GUTS, DEFINITELY NO GLORY.Margaret Cho joins Whoopi Goldberg and Linda Ronstadt on the list of liberal performers who are paying the price for their beliefs. Unlike Goldberg and Ronstadt, though, Cho is being censored in advance. According tothis press release, Cho has been dropped from aUnity �04 event, scheduled for Avalon in Boston on Monday night, out of fear that her provocative material might harm John Kerry.

According tothis AP report, a new bit by Cho on the Iraqi prison scandal is so over-the-top that she had to be escorted from the stage. And the problem is what, exactly?

Perhaps the Kerry campaign didn't have anything to do with this. Perhaps the Human Rights Campaign and the other gay-rights groups organizing this event did it on their own, not wanting to embarrass the nominee.

If that's the case, there's a simple solution. Kerry should personally re-invite Cho back onto the program. After all, if this is how the Democrats and their allies are going to behave, what, precisely, is the point of having Democrats?

QUITE POSSIBLY THE LAST REVIEW OFFAHRENHEIT 9/11 THAT YOU'LL EVER READ. Media Log kicks off its official coverage of the Democratic National Convention today with a review of Michael Moore'sFahrenheit 9/11. (Clickhere for Peter Keough'sPhoenix review.) I realize that I'm late to the scene, but hey, I've been busy. But since yesterday afternoon was relatively unscheduled, I figured I'd hop over to Harvard Square and watch it with a sympathetic audience.

That turned out to be Mistake #1: rather than the rapturous crowds I'd heard about from the likes ofBoston Globe columnistEllen Goodman, applauding Moore's every Bush-bashing touch, there were maybe a half-dozen of us. My fellow theater-goers looked, for the most part, like they were trying to get out of the heat as much as they were hoping for some good old-fashioned left-wing agit-prop.

Mistake #2 was thinking thatFahrenheit 9/11 was going to suck. I've never been a fan of factual distortion, regardless of ideology. I'd read Christopher Hitchens's monumentaltakedown of Moore inSlate, as well asNewsweek's dissections of Moore's alleged problems with the truth (clickhere andhere). The film also did not get off to a promising start in its evocation of the Florida fiasco. Moore, like many unthinking critics, suggested that there was something sinister about Bush's cousin John Ellis making the call from his post at the Fox News Channel. Well, I know Ellis, and I know that he's a good guy. He also happens to be a professional pollster whose job it is to get it right. Perhaps he shouldn't have let himself get wedged into such an awkward position (although he's got a right to make a living, doesn't he?). But he'd be the first one to tell you that the screw-ups that night - not just his, as you may recall - were bad for business.

Then a funny thing happened. I became totally engrossed in Moore's take on the Bush presidency. It was as though we had arrived at roughly the same place by traveling different routes. Moore takes up permanent residence on the wilder edges of Bush-bashing. His insinuation that George W. Bush was slow to act against Al Qaeda because of his family's business ties with Saudi Arabia and the bin Laden family is unsupported. And, as has been widely reported, one of Moore's accusations more or less blew up in his face when former counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke, hardly a Bush fan, took personal responsibility for letting the bin Laden family fly out of the country.

But on broad, thematic, big-picture stuff, Moore has it right, and presents it in a way that is both funny and moving. Critics have gone after Moore for making fun of Bush as he sat stone-faced in that Florida classroom for seven minutes after learning that the second World Trade Center tower had been hit. Well, why? After all, he knew at that point that the country was under attack. Didn't occur to him that he could have politely excused himself and then gone and made a decision or something? (Oh, right; that's what Cheney's for.)

Moore has also been criticized for exploiting Lila Lipscomb, whose son, Michael, a sergeant in the Army, was killed in Iraq. Indeed, Moore depicts Lipscomb's grief in the rawest manner imaginable. But there's also no doubt that Lipscomb wanted Moore to be there - to get out the message that this former conservative Democratic war supporter has been radicalized by the death of her son, and that she wants others to know what is going on in Iraq. Here's what Lipscombtold theGuardian recently:

The reason I didn't hesitate was because I was carrying my son's words with me. And as a mother I have to carry each and every day the fact, could I have done a little bit more? Could I have been more vocal so that the president would not have been given that much authority within himself? And nobody can make that go away. My son got sent into harm's way by a decision made by the president of the United States that was based on a lie. Would my son still be here today if I had had my uprising then?

Work spaces have been assigned andwireless Internet access has been arranged. Phone lines, electric outlets, parking spots for satellite trucks: all are details being worked out for the massive media center that will be created in Midtown Manhattan for the Republican National Convention at the end of August.

DOING THE RIGHT THING. Sandy Berger stepped aside from John Kerry's presidential campaign almost immediately yesterday, which shows that he understands the seriousness of the charges against him. Even if his removal of highly classified documents from the National Archives was inadvertent - even if he didn't stuff them in his socks - he's nevertheless made himself radioactive to Kerry's presidential hopes.

ThisWashington Post story, by Susan Schmidt, is much tougher and more informative than Eric Lichtblau'seffort in theNew York Times.

Fortunately for Kerry, the Republicans may already be overplaying their hand. According to Schmidt, Georgia senator Saxby Chambliss, who won his seat in part by impugning the patriotism of triple-amputee war veteran Max Cleland, is charging that Berger supplied stolen documents to the Kerry campaign. His evidence ... well, he doesn't have any.

TENSION CITY! As Bush 41 used to say. Or was that Dana Carvey? Last night I went to the local Apple store to pick up my iBook, which had blown its logic board the previous week. The hard drive had been (gasp) reformatted!

Supposedly the drive had been completely backed up at the store before it was shipped out. It says so right on the receipt, which I have been staring at with the hopefulness of a child staring up the chimney on Christmas Eve. But the guy who waited on me had no way of checking that out. So I find out this morning whether I've lost any data, including several years' worth of photos.

Yes, I should have a better backup strategy, but such things are expensive. Not as expensive as this, though. Media Log's fingers, toes, arms, and legs are crossed. And if Steve Jobs spares me, I promise to get an external Firewire drive.

BACKDOOR CENSORSHIP. Freedom of speech is a great thing. Too bad we're using the tax code and arcane campaign-finance laws to regulate it to death. I can think of several examples of liberals and progressives being silenced or threatened. The most outrageous: a suggestion that advertisements forFahrenheit 9/11 could bebannedbecause they amount to illegal campaign contributions to John Kerry.

This morning, though, two examples of conservatives being targeted for speaking their minds.

The first involves Governor Mitt Romney, who delivered a speech on presidential politics earlier this week. Romney certainly deserves criticism on substantive grounds, andBoston Globe columnist Scot Lehighsticks it to himtoday. More troubling, though, isthisGlobe story, by Raphael Lewis, reporting that Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman Phil Johnston is filing an ethics complaint against Romney for politicking while on the taxpayer's time. Says Johnston:

The second example is a story in today'sNew York Times by David Kirkpatrick, whoreportsthat Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has filed a complaint with the IRS charging that the Reverend Jerry Falwell's advocacy of George W. Bush's campaign violates the tax-exempt status of Falwell's religious organization. The Reverend Barry Lynn, head of Americans United, tells theTimes:

Johnston and Lynn may well be right, and Romney and Falwell may indeed be violating some law or regulation. And you could certainly argue that it wouldn't be difficult for them to get on the correct side of the law. Romney could have used campaign funds to pay for his trip. Falwell could haved used his separate lobbying organization to get out his pro-Bush message - as indeed he claims he did.

But political speech ought to be the most unregulated, freewheeling speech there is. Mitt Romney and Jerry Falwell - and Michael Moore and anyone else - ought to feel free to speak out on public issues without worrying that they've broken some provision of the tax code, or violated campaign-finance laws.

In our understandable but misguided zeal to get special-interest money out of politics, we're enroaching on free-speech rights.

A few months ago I wrote about what's wrong with campaign-finance reform. Clickhereto read it.

Jan	FEB	Mar
	26
2005	2006	2007