I do not think last night accomplished much for Barack Obama.

Once again, the networks only started their coverage at 10 PM, and the pre-speech analysis was dedicated exclusively to Hillary. From 10:30 to the start of the speech, I counted about 10 mentions of Barack Obama from NBC news anchors and analysts. Clinton mentioned Obama about 10 times. So, that's 20 mentions of the nominee between 10:30 PM and 11:10 PM.

That's not much.

Define a convention as four days of sustained politicking for the nominee - with partisans showering him with praise, making his case as aggressively as possible, and arguing that the public shouldn't vote for those damned bastards on the other side.

This gathering in Denver is not a convention. It's too distracted by the rift between Obama and Clinton. All day today the talk is about Hillary Clinton - whether or not she did what she had to do. Biden gets the prime time spot tonight, but the newsies will spend plenty of time talking about Bill Clinton. In case that's not enough, there will even be a roll call vote this afternoon!

How does any of this help Obama's candidacy? That should be the first priority of the convention, but it seems like the last.

If there is fault for this, none of it lies with Hillary. For starters, she did "what she had to do" last night. She endorsed Obama as well as she could have, given the nature of the primary battle. And remember, candidates with half as much standing usually make twice as much noise. By historical standards, Hillary has been the model of graciousness.

This is Obama's doing. He is the nominee. He could have given Hillary the vice-presidential nomination. Choosing her would have totally changed the convention for the better. But Obama didn't choose her. He tapped Joe Biden instead. As a consequence, he's lost control of his own convention.

He's betting that his Thursday speech will be good enough to render all this moot.

It better be. Come Friday morning, McCain returns to the front page with his vice-presidential pick. Then the attention turns to the convention in St. Paul, which will not have such distractions.