The Washington press corps is the worst of all possible press corpses. Fortunately, the D.C. press corps has been churning up a lot of copy over the last week. Every morning, political beat reporters compete for the mantle of Fanciest Prancing Lad in the Room using one single completely transparent bullshit strategy: a bunch of pointy-headed observations about what the marquee convention speakers didn't say in their speeches. And they almost universally preface their farty commentary with the phrase "But what was most interesting is what she didn't say in her speech." Indeed, yes, there's nothing I enjoy more than listening to what a riveting orator didn't say, but usually I'm too distracted by the inconsequential stuff they actually did say to notice.

It's the Playskool Busy Baby Postmortem for lazy analytical vanguards. Christ, even Midwest Voices blogger Ross Balano gets in on it. Here's why it's so easy: The number of things a speaker didn't say is actually, literally infinite, and I'll just point out here that I didn't hear Sen. Obama warn children last night about making Tony Todd magically appear by saying "Candyman" five times. Is he serious about protecting children from the Candyman? This morning, USA Today's editorial page completely changes the game by squinting through its monocle and claiming that by saying things, Obama actually didn't say them:

"The speech was interesting, too, for what Obama didn’t say. Obama is the first African American to win a major party’s nomination — a moment so historic that few would have imagined it possible when he was born 47 years ago. Yet, accepting the nomination 45 years to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his signature I Have a Dream speech at a march on Washington demanding racial equality, Obama barely mentioned race and only briefly referred to King."

There you have it. By mentioning race and Dr. King, Obama did not mention race or Dr. King. Final Score: 7 on the Bristol Stool Scale, with a margin of error of WHAT THE FUCK, USA TODAY?

Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick smugly points out that the Democrats didn't talk about the goddamned Constitution. Here's one plausible explanation: The convention of a political party isn't a fucking civics class. They weren't discussing the Periodic Table of fucking Elements, either, Dahlia; what does that say about their commitment to chemistry class? I know they got too busy to provide a civil-service exam prep course in lieu of electing a president, but I've got 10 bucks that says the Republican party won't do it, either. Jesus Christ, it seems like the only good appraisal of Barack Obama's speech actually comes from this batty old racist: