Three nights later President Bush gave the other grounds, the "idealist" rationale for war. In an argument of a length and coherence exceedingly rare in a convention speech, he gave an elaborate defense of democratization as the only serious answer to the nihilism festering in a repressed and oppressed Middle East -- a nihilism that exploded upon us on Sept. 11.
You can take that argument or leave it. You can take McCain's argument or leave it. But these are arguments, ideas that inform policy. "I was a war hero" is a non sequitur that only a party plagued with pacifism for the past 30 years could imagine is a convincing rationale for leadership.
The only Republican misstep was Zell Miller. Not because he was over the top. He was. But so what? No political convention is complete without at least one over-the-top speech. Bill Clinton's Boston address featured a hilarious passage professing the utmost respect for Republicans, pointing out that Republicans merely have a different worldview from Democrats: Republicans simply think it is best to throw widows and orphans into the snow -- while taking their lunch money so the rich can have larger yachts. We are all patriots, Clinton explained genially. We just have different political opinions.
The real problem with Miller was that he overshadowed Vice President Cheney's speech, which should have been that night's centerpiece. The Cheney speech was brilliant, a surgical dissection of John Kerry delivered with the soporific calm, the preternatural restraint of a chief pathologist's report at hospital Grand Rounds.
Will the bounce last? Undoubtedly not. The Bush lead will narrow. But it will not be Kerry doing the narrowing. It will be the world. Bad news is always out there. In the middle of a middling economic recovery, there is always bad economic news to accompany the good news. And the fighting in Iraq will continue to haunt this presidency.
Bush will slide. Kerry will surely fight, but he will mostly flail. He has become a spectator. This election was and remains a referendum on Bush. That's how the Democrats wanted it.