He writes:

Over in my old haunts at the Corner, there is general disappointment with the speech and McCain’s failure or refusal to offer specific policy prescriptions that offer a break with the status quo. But this was not a speech for people interested in policy, or for those who are going to vote for McCain, but for people who don’t yet know for whom they are going to vote. It was designed to demonstrate McCain’s unusual blend of personal heroism and history as an unconventional politician, to define him to tens of millions who don’t know that much about him. It was intended to go directly at the notion that a McCain administration will be a continuation of the Bush administration, and thereby neutralize a key Democratic attack. In these respects, I suspect, it was very successful.

I hope he’s right. And I was struck at how much time McCain spent countering the image of himself as a warmonger. The sobriety of the speech will help him achieve that goal, as well as make him look less like a partisan hothead. But some policy detail could have been deployed in the service of refuting the charge that he would continue the Bush administration.