- Enough with the kvetching already! Dems need to wake up and snap out of it, WaPo's Eugene Robin writes. The columnist said he's been in Denver since Saturday and he's tired of hear Dems complain. What about initiating a rally cry about how badly they're going to stomp the Republicans come November? And with confidence this time!: "People, the stars don't line up any more auspiciously than this."
- Newsweek brings in former presidential speechwriters to sink their teeth into verbose liberals at this year's convention. So how badly does former GWB speechwriter Michael Gerson mangle his prey? Don't get your hopes up: "Sorry to disappoint on this initial outing, but I found Michelle Obama impressive -- confident, fluent and appealingly personal."
- The positives at the convention outweighed the negatives for NYT columnist David Brooks -- and he's keeping score, literally. We don't really want to get into the intricacies of the "plus" and "minus" system that he's developed and carefully delineated in his column but let's just say he thought the whole 'unity' thing was well-played last night. Plus one, WSJ.
- There sure was a whole lot of throat-clearing before things got interesting at the convention last night. And CNN contributor and former Clinton consultant James Carville was "about to jump out of my chair" with impatience. So, on with it already, people! This is prime time: "Well if this party has a message it has done a hell of a job of hiding it tonight I can promise you that," he said.
