This Washington Post story has an interesting kicker in the final paragraph: “One Kerry friend said the candidate focuses on more traditional news outlets and lacks a sophisticated understanding of modern media. ‘You would think he would have recognized this five years ago,’ the friend said.”

You don’t say. On the one hand, what are they thinking? After the way Howard Dean used the Internet to build a serious challenge out of thin air, you would think the Kerry people would understand how powerful it can be.

But on the other hand, if you spend a lot of time reading the new media, you can see why they wouldn’t want to pay attention to it.

One of the fun things about being a journalist is that you get easy access to all sorts of cool stuff. Exhibit A today are the White House pool reports that we’ve been getting. Some of the best reporting and writing I’ve read all week has come from the pool reports, and today’s description of Bush attending a church service and then doing his MSG walk-through is no exception. Bennett Roth of the Houston Chronicle writes:

After the church service, the president and entourage motorcaded to Madison Square Garden, once again passing throngs of people behind barricades looking only mildly interested. At the Garden, Bush walked out to the round platform and checked out the microphone on the wood podium. He was accompanied by the First Lady, Dan Bartlett, Andy Card, and Mark McKinnon, looking unYankee like in a straw hat. The president uttered a few phrases to check out the sound quality, “Four score and seven years ago,” he said. “We have come here to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place.” Then looking at your poolers he said “My fellow Americans of the press corps, especially the cameramen, tax relief is on the way. Don’t spend it all in one place. Thank you very much.”

Poolers then exited the Garden. Motorcade back was uneventful and crowds placid, except again for the occasional finger.

That’s funny, well-observed reporting done with a nice light touch. Kudos or props or whatever the kids call them these days to Roth and the rest of the press pool for the fine work they’ve done this week.

A friend of mine told me I should be reading a blogger named Matthew Yglesias. Yglesias, he said, is a super-smart guy who runs a fun, intellectually honest blog. Fair enough. I jetted over this morning and found this post:

Me at a party last night: “I’ve never really been around a lot of Republicans before.” “So now you think better of us?” “Not really.”

Overheard in a hotel lobby: “I get the feeling these New Yorker liverals just don’t understand how 9-11 changed things. It’s like they don’t even remember it.” (no, fuck you).

Later, in Starbucks, two Young Republicans dialogue. “What does SoHo mean?” “Maybe it’s like a hooker from the South.” (South of Houston Street, asswipe). “I heard the bagels here were supposed to be different, but they seem the same to me.” (because you’re in a fucking Starbucks moron). “I would have expected Bush to get more support in New York — there seem to be so many Mexicans living here. (they’re Puerto Ricans, and . . . what?).

Then cute girl at adjacent table: “hey…aren’t you the guy who wrote that there were no cute girls in Midtown?” That turned out better.

Isn’t this blogosphere-thingy amazing? Can’t you just feel the intellectual curiousity and fair-mindedness lapping over you in warm, gentle waves?

Give me the New Yorker or the Washington Post or, heck, the New York Times any day of the week. (Sorry to disappoint conservatives, but I’m on record as believing in my heart of hearts that, taken as a whole, the New York Times is a wonder of the modern world. It’s an amazing accomplishment.) These print outlets may not always be perfect, but you’ll never see anything as shockingly provincial or boorish in the old media that we’re all supposed to regard with so much disdain.

As usual, Richard Cohen comes up with the most serious critique of the proceedings in New York.

Cohen says, basically, that Republicans are giving no details, no plans, no reason to believe that they are capable of winning the war on terror. Further, Cohen charges that there is no admission from Republicans that, while there have been no attacks on American soil since 9/11, the terrorists have succeeded in striking elsewhere often–and at great cost to both America and its allies.

Cohen is right and his criticism is fair, but it misses one political reality: Since John Kerry has been equally bereft of specifics, Republicans need only convince voters that they actually treat the war on terror like a war. As the contest is shaping up, it isn’t a question of a difference in methods, but a difference in purposes between the two candidates.

I’ve been busy. I have pieces posted now on the Cheney and Miller speeches and an anti-Kerry play (in New York City, of all places).

The slogan for Day 3 is “A Land of Opportunity.”

My piece on the many mysteries of Laura Bush is up now.

MSNBC News reports that “flame retardants were found in U.S. supermarket food in larger than expected amounts, warranting further study given the possible ties to cancer, researchers reported Wednesday in Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society.”

In other news, reports of spontaneous human combustion have declined dramatically over the last few years.