Wow. I actually fell asleep during his speech, toward the end. It was written poorly and just didn't possess any energy. Worst of all, there were no specifics, just some bland platitudes towards the GOP plank.

At one part, he even railed against the Republican party for a minute. Why should people vote for a Republican to be responsible after the past 8 years? That was never made clear.

All in all, the fact they screwed up the background is the best summation of the entire event:

I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.

Brilliant.

I hadn't seen any of the RNC before last night...it defied belief. Speaker after speaker got on to trash the Democratic ticket, claiming they'd "raise taxes" or "increase government" and completely ignoring the budget shenanigans the GOP has fostered for the past eight years. Next, Guiliani and Palin both attacked Obama for leaving college to become a community organizer (did they want him to leave Harvard Law School and immediately start racking in money at a big firm?!?) because that wasn't "real work". First the Republicans attack the government, and now they're attacking community organizers. Who's next? Traffic guards?

The oddest moment of the night came in Guiliani's speech, when he claimed that Obama's success story could happen "only in America" and the audience began to laugh. Maybe I just don't get it. Why would that be funny? Do they think America has too much opportunity?

Palin came across as a dyed-in-the-wool GOP knife fighter, eager to lie (Obama's tax plan actually cuts taxes for 85% of middle income Americans by over a grand....way more than the McCain plan, which costs $40 trillion but mostly deals with corporate taxes) and obfuscate (she actually fought for the bridge to nowhere....but now baldly claims she was against it!) to get elected. Ugh. Hopefully the media will call her out on her distortions (a few did last night.)

The contrast between the two conventions couldn't be starker: Obama's final speech, in which he said that we should never question the patriotism of those in the other party stands in clear opposition to every speech given last night, where GOP member after GOP member slammed the Democrats for being weak on economics or national security. It's like we're in bizarro-land, where President Gore has presided for the past eight years.

Sigh.

I've been a huge fan of firefox over the years. But chrome is amazingly slick. Rendering is faster, pages are more responsive, and the UI just. makes. sense.

Firefox and IE need to adapt quickly. Since IE8 is already almost ready to be shipped, both teams are going to have to readjust quickly.

I never thought I'd be happy to see the return of the browser wars, but I am.

The sheer size of this audience is why we'll win.

Obama had one chance to nail it and did. In front of more people at one moment than ever before. Most Americans didn't know Barack Obama before last night. Now, at least 1 out of 8 has seen him. That's an amazing statistic for our country.

Any good feminist, regardless of gender, ought to be outraged

So maybe Team Obama should go on the offensive, having some of its female surrogates express their disgust and dismay that McCain apparently considers women candidates to be interchangeable, regardless of their experience or policy views. (This was, after all, a common gripe among Hillary voters whenever it was suggested that Obama might tap Kathleen Sebelius as his number 2.)

This is actually why I think Palin is a good pick. For the Democrats. She is a GOP standard bearer in the same garb as Clarence Thomas, or Bobby Jindal: an unexceptional person who merely acts as a placeholder. Can you imagine if the Democrats nominated candidates based merely on color, or gender?

Posted without comment.

Well, they saved the best for last. Obama's speech managed to inspire, attack and educate all at the same time. I don't think he could've put together a better speech, or better optics. The GOP next week needs to be seriously worried at this point...and Democrats may be able to breathe easier for the first time in a few weeks.

There were so many good lines, it's hard to focus on two, but these really stood out for me:

What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's about you.

and...

Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than 90 percent of the time?" Obama asked. "I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change.

Regardless, Obama threw one hell of a political touchdown pass last night.