This is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Bob Garfield is away this week, so he missed the Republican National Convention, a big tent open to all who love America.

But in a twist on a familiar campaign slogan, there actually were two conventions underway in New York's Madison Square Garden, a quiet one with a platform uncompromising enough to assuage the

Christian right, and a noisy one, where perceived moderates like John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani,

and Arnold Schwarzenegger offered clarion calls to the undecided.

As far as the TV pundits were concerned, there were several great speeches and a couple of misfires before the president took the floor.

One, discharged by Democrat Zell Miller, accused John Kerry of such dangerous negligence.

It sizzled and smoked.

Today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator,

and nothing makes this Marine matter than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.

In the immediate aftermath, the cable news anchors responded with a rare display of spine.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews had already taken

some flack from Republicans for asking hard questions, and he persistently challenged Miller's

distortion of Kerry's voting record. Didn't you many times vote against whole packages of spending

when you would have gladly gone for a small package? The interview grew so heated, it nearly ended with a call for pistols at dawn.

Get out of my face.

If you're going to ask me a question, step back and let me answer.

I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel.

As for CNN, perhaps it felt safe, challenging Miller,

who has neither McCain's reputation for integrity nor Giuliani's halo of heroism.

Plus, Miller is a Democrat who acts Republican, attacking him is in a sense bipartisan.

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