At some point, somebody, maybe David Axelrod, should have taken the speech as we saw it tonight and pulled Obama aside and said…

“I know you want to give this speech. I know you’re itching to take it to McCain. I know you’re seething that he’s calling you a celebrity, I know you want to demonstrate that you won’t be Swiftboated, and I know the delegates are demanding attack, attack, and more attack.

But you can’t. It completely undermines who you are, and why people outside the Democratic party thought you were something special when you spoke back in 2004. Everything in here, you can say tomorrow. You can say it Monday, as the GOP convention begins. You can put it in your opening statement at the first debate. But tonight, you have to offer a grand, inspiring vision and a way to get there. You can’t do it if every two paragraphs you have to send a message to the other guy. Word is he’s putting out a “nice job” ad tonight. If you want to deal with him, do it the way we did with Hillary and Bill – get it out of the way early. The Martin Luther King stuff feels kind of stuck on at the end, anyway. Let’s try to make this a speech that people will study in rhetoric classes decades from now. As it is, it’s okay, and I realize we’re trying to do a lot — describe your biography, lay out your policy ideas, defend the Democratic party as a whole, indict the Bush administration… the easiest thing to cut is the McCain stuff. And you look worse when you get to those lines anyway — too hot, too angry. You’re going with the red tie? I thought we agreed light blue. Fine, go with the red. But we know an angry guy isn’t going to win over those skeptics in Ohio and Pennsylvania. You want to rip McCain? Go right ahead — but not tonight. This is your night to soar.”

Or maybe I’m wrong.