I have mixed feelings about not applying for blog press credentials. Too much going on in my life this summer. Got to focus. Still, it would have been a blast.

So instead, I direct you to my friend Jeralyn Merritt, who does the TalkLeft blog. She's got three posts up already, and you can really catch the enthusiasm so missing from the newsmodels on TV.

She was featured in the blog stories by both the NYT and W Post today. The Times actually opened with her, and the Post used a picture of her, so you can finally see what she looks like. If I weren't a homo . . .

Really enjoying watching her light up.

Here's a quote from the Post piece:

"I'm committed to seeing Bush out of office in November and want to do what I can to help," says Jeralyn Merritt, a Denver defense lawyer who writes the TalkLeft blog. "To me the purpose of a convention is solidarity and getting strength from each other and renewed commitment to a joint purpose. I am a cheerleader. I am a partisan. I am an advocate. My goal is to get everyone else stirred up."

And lets contrast that to hacknews quote from Newsweek's Howard Fineman:

Newsweek's Howard Fineman, who will be filing online dispatches from his BlackBerry on the convention floor, calls it "a real-time EKG of my response to the convention as a reporter and a yakker. We're all going to spend our time reading each other's blogs and blog our way to oblivion. If there was any real news, we'd all be too busy to blog."

Blech! He really talks that way.

Meanwhile, Salon's Tim Grieve, just posted a great story on the first afternoon:

"That flag is our flag"
Veterans, led by war heroes Wesley Clark and Max Cleland, charge out of the trenches in Boston for John Kerry

Reading the story gave me the shivers. Exactly what this party has needed for 30 years now. The big question in my mind: Why did they relegate it to an afternoon slot? This should have been the main event one night.

Oh well. It's a start.