MINOR-LEAGUE MITT. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's speech was a disgrace. Rather than the governor of a major state, he sounded like a Belmont selectman who'd won a contest to address the RNC. (No doubt I'm being unfair to the Belmont selectmen.) It was a combination of cheap, low attacks, meaningless schmaltz, and hero worship of the Maximum Leader. This is a guy who's going to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate in 2008? I don't think so.

Here's a line for the ages: "George W. Bush is right and the Blame America First Crowd is wrong!" I'm not sure I've heard the phrase "blame America first" since neocon godmother Jeane Kirkpatrick was running around unsupervised in the 1980s.

To top it off, in introducing Romney, his lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey, repeated the lie that Kerry is the most liberal member of the Senate. Try #11. Yes, Kerry's a liberal, but he's one who's right in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. I'm not sure if Healey doesn't know or doesn't care. Given the way she was giggling, it was probably the latter.

It will be interesting to see what the Globe and the Herald make of this fiasco tomorrow.