John Edwards gave a terrific speech last night furthering a major theme in the convention: it’s time for unity. Little talked about in the news is just how great his wife, Elizabeth’s, introduction was.

So much is not being seen on the major stations. As Garret says: Do CSPAN or PBS.

TV is really failing us. You need to read the papers, or visit the bloggers for any kind or interesting or in depth coverage. On ABC I heard one of their anchors describe their coverage as “gavel to gavel”. In what universe?

I had to tune in late tonight but what I did catch caught me by surprise:

Tom Daschle sounded dull and the crowd looked restless while he spoke.

Barack Obama not only meets the hype, he exceeds it. He shared what should be the heart and soul of the Democratic party and took a swipe at my favorite targets – those that choose to sell something to us by division:

…even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America-there’s the United States of America.

There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention, 2004

Spreading ideas and making them stick is blogging’s forte. I had heard of Obama before the convention only by reading my favorites and now their influence will touch Google and define what it points to when people search out his name. This is one idea to that will carry forward for a long time. Obama is the future of the Democratic party and like like Mr. Willis says, “the future looks good”.

Finally, Teresa Heinz Kerry did a great job introducing herself to the country last night. She will be a terrific first lady.

You can see the Barack Obama speech and more at the Kerry Edwards campaign site.

See live streaming video of the contention at the official convention site.

Thomas Oliphant publishes a deeply personal profile on John Kerry in the American Prospect.

The more I hear about him, the more I like him. How different that is from other candidates in the past!

Local weblogger Atrios’s unmasking is the biggest shared news item among many convention webloggers. Go Atrios!

In all seriousness, Atrios’s story and effect are news and hopefully now that he is public, a real profile can be done on how and why he does what he does and is so effective at it.

Fox News talked over a powerful rendition of Amazing Grace, played as memorial to 9/11. You know Fox News – they hate America.

Unmentioned among ALL the convention webloggers, and suspiciously not shown on CN8 (Comcast’s news network) or CNN is David Alston. His tribute to serving with Kerry in Vietnam was moving and even from TV, you could tell he had the convention floor rocking.

The NYTimes catches a theme that I picked up on, the speakers represented a half a century of Democratic leadership. From Al Gore, to Carter, to Bill and Hillary Clinton, their speeches were tough and optimistic. With a good dash of humor thrown in by all.

“Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.”

President Clinton, Democratic National Convention, 2004

Metafilter has a thread pointing to various weblogger driven coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Unfortunately it appears to have been hijacked by folks that want to flame instead of discuss the various sites to watch.

So you can ignore that thread and look here:

politics.technorati.com
conventionwebloggers.com
politics.feedster.com

Related articles:

NYTimes: Web Diarists Are Now Official Members of Convention Press Corps.

WSJt: Meet the Bloggers: Not the usual cast of characters for once!

The 9/11 Commission Report came out yesterday and a few questions are on everyone’s mind. Let me try and summarize the best I can (and feel free to correct me folks):

Who is to blame?

The report makes clear that no single person is to blame. It was a collective failure. I’m reminded of the Rolling Stones in Sympathy for the Devil: “I shouted out, Who killed the kennedys? When after all, It was you and me.”

Who will be held accountable?

That remains to be seen. Because blame is so far spread, I doubt there will be any single person.

Are we safe?

The immediate response to 9/11 ad-hoc since we were unprepared. Many more could have lost their lives if not for the heroes doing emergency response: Police, Fire, and EMTs in New York and Washington D.C.. The long term policies of this administration in response have been inadequate and have not made us safe. In some respects it has made things worst.

What about the reports recommendations?

It remains to be seen if they will get implemented or politicized.

Now go read it for yourself and determine what you think about it:

The 9/11 Commission posted the major chapters as a set of downloadable PDFs.

PDFHacks took those and broke them down into bookmarkable sections.

Jason Kottke posted an HTML version of the Executive Summary (very easy to read).

Apple’s iTunes has posted audio testimony from the hearings for free.

Boing Boing has been the clearing house to find these.

John Kerry released a statement that you should read after the report.

The NYTimes has an section devoted to analysis and reactions to it.

Oliver Willis points out some key recommendations in it.

For more reaction, check out the Feedster’s DNC Webloggers Aggregator.