SCOOPS.(The Talk of the Town)

The news cycle is a tricky matter these days, what with cable TV and the Internet, but in the buildup to the Convention a new complication materialized: clairvoyance. Not content with the traditional sequence of choreographed tips and leaks, some of the participants in the political game sought to surmount the limitations of time and space. Suddenly, everybody seemed to know about things before they had happened.

For example, in the new issue of Harper's, which came out two weeks ago, Lewis Lapham, the editor, described the Convention as though it were already over: "The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal--government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maiden's prayer--and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that Hofstadter didn't stay to answer. . . ." At least one reader was moved to write the magazine in mock admiration of Lapham's "ability to travel in time," while others posted less amiable remarks on assorted blogs, comparing Lapham to Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, and other fabulists. (Lapham responded on the magazine's Web site, admitting that he'd made a serious mistake--of verb tense and "poetic license"--for which he was sorry.)

Meanwhile, John Kerry passed through town last week to deliver a speech at the Cooper Union. An Associated Press account of this visit crossed the wires hours before Kerry had even arrived. Though it may be customary for a campaign to release the text of a speech in advance, it is rare, even for politicians, to appear without first showing up. At any rate, Kerry, too, seemed to have glimpsed the future. In his speech, he said of the Republicans, "They are going to say that we've turned the corner; that the job is getting done. They are even going to claim, as they already have, that this is the best economy of our lifetimes." (The Times' report, published the next day, improved on the A.P. scoop by noting that the speech lasted thirty-one minutes.)

President Bush's acceptance speech this Thursday will soon be old news--perhaps even before he delivers it, thanks (one may ...