RNC

What I said, but better. Here's the Post's Dana Milibank on the speeches at the Republican National Convention,

"The theme of the Republican convention on Wednesday night, as on the previous two nights, was unmistakable: Be afraid of terrorists, and be very afraid of John F. Kerry's ability to fight the terrorists.

On a day when the official theme was economic opportunity, Sen. Zell Miller (Ga.), the keynote speaker, made no mention of the economy. Instead, he delivered a derisive indictment of the Democratic presidential nominee, saying Kerry would arm the military with "spitballs" and "outsource our national security" to Paris.

Vice President Cheney, in his speech Wednesday night, devoted fewer than 100 of his nearly 2,700 words to the economy, instead launching an extended attack on Kerry's ability to fight terrorists. Saying Kerry wants to show al Qaeda "our softer side,"

...Even given the political imperative, the convention's focus on terrorism -- and the charge that Kerry is ill-equipped to combat it -- has been intense. The party has gone through three hours of prime-time speeches with barely a mention of the economy, passing reference to domestic policies, and no specific discussion of Bush's agenda for a second term...

...Miller and Cheney reached deep into Kerry's past to present him as a danger to Americans' security -- at times mischaracterizing the Democrat's positions in the process. "Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations," Miller said. Cheney, in turn, said Kerry "began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed 'only at the directive of the United Nations.' " The vice president said, "Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve -- as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics."

Both men apparently were referring to a 1970 interview Kerry gave to the Harvard Crimson. In his speech accepting his party's nomination in July, Kerry said: "I will never give any nation or any institution a veto over our national security."

Miller portrayed Kerry as "an auctioneer selling off our national security." He recited a long list of weapons systems he said Kerry opposed. Miller's list was mostly derived from a single Kerry vote against a spending bill in 1991, rather than individual votes against particular systems. The bill was also opposed by five Republican senators at the time, and Cheney, who was defense secretary then, was demanding even deeper cuts in defense spending by Congress."

And here is Andrew Sullivan, a Republican blogger discussing the differences between the DNC and the RNC,

"Zell Miller's address will, I think, go down as a critical moment in this campaign, and maybe in the history of the Republican party. I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift. Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats...The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude."