Reaction to Kerry speech

He's everything they wanted - a northeast Liberal from the Ted Kennedy school. Yet a number of liberal papers and writers you expected to be pleased were not.

The Washington Post was blunt. It was a "Missed Opportunity" and the speech a disappointment in many respects. They chide that Mr. Kerry missed an opportunity for straight talk. THIS, from a man who has talked and voted out of both sides of his mouth for months? What did they expect an overnight conversion? They criticize his promise to stop outsourcing and dependence on foreign oil as "are not grounded in reality," but they praise his health plan barely sketched by the candidate as a thoughtful approach. In their view, his plan to trim the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to pay for health insurance and education was responsible. Who is really not grounded in reality?

Thomas Oliphant, writing in the Boston Globe, thought the speech "Rushed speech, lost opportunity" The problem, Oliphant, thinks was the length of the speech, not the incoherence NY Times' David Brooks found. The delivery was rushed, constrained by the meanness of the media allotment of 60 minutes as Tom Shales found the problem, which forced the audience to respond loudest to points about civil rights and civil liberties. Oliphant gushed over surely one of the weirdest phrases from a we-are-religious-too Kerry moment "In parts it was beautifully written (trees as "the cathedrals of nature")."
In Oliphant's view, Kerry was giving a "thematic overview," not a practice State of the Union speech. Maybe that's exactly how Americans should view the speech - a foretaste of the rush Kerry might make to judgements without benefit of the leadership that could bring his audience along with him. Kerry couldn't even bring along Oliphant.

Ken Fireman of Newsday had a lot to say, most favorable. Except where it matters. "Kerry's night, but it was the audience that mattered" Fireman worried that Kerry missed his opportunity with the audience.

Kerry's speech was not a short one -- 45 minutes from start to finish. But he spent relatively little time outlining his own plans and programs, something that may not sit well with swing voters who frequently tell pollsters and reporters they are looking for specifics.

Most liberal newspapers followed the lead of the New York Times.