Listening to the speeches last night in Boston, one couldn’t help but get the feeling that this had something of the drama of Kerry vs. the Democrats. Certainly Senator Kerry’s handlers were working hard to silence the rage of the delegates. The first draft of Vice President Gore’s speech, according to MSNBC,”was basically torn up” to tone down the kind of notorious anti-Bush invective that burst from Mr. Gore at Georgetown University, where the loser of the last election spoke of a “deliberate campaign to mislead America” by President Bush and his administration.

On that occasion, the erstwhile vice president claimed that the Bush Republicans “look like complete fools for launching our country into a reckless, totally discretionary war against a nation that posed no immediate threat to us whatsoever.” He seemed to forget that Mr. Kerry himself had voted for the war. In a speech to MoveOn PAC in May, Mr. Gore called Mr. Bush “the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon,” accused him of establishing a “gulag,” and charged that Mr. Bush had struck a “Faustian bargain” in which the president had lost his soul.

Last night at the Democratic National Convention, however, Mr. Kerry’s people seemed to have slipped a sedative in Mr. Gore’s drink, for the Tennessean noted calmly that “our country faces deep challenges” and that “America needs new leadership.” His criticism of Mr. Bush was limited to a series of rhetorical questions that did not even mention the president by name.

Other liberal standard-bearers were asked similarly to mute their rhetorical attacks on the Bush administration. Governor Dean managed to escape long enough to make it clear that he, for one, doesn’t like the advice. “I think attacking the Bush record is a pretty good idea,” he told Fox News. “I think there’s a lot to attack.” But Mr. Kerry, who bested Dr. Dean by co-opting his rhetoric, plans to beat Mr. Bush by co-opting his.

The sterilized Democratic convention wouldn’t be objectionable if it simply signaled a new commitment to civil discourse and moderate policies. The thing to remember is that it is from the convention-goers and the party faithful that Mr. Kerry would staff any administration he might be elected to head. So suppressing the party’s anger and antics becomes a kind of false front. The reaction from the crowd at the Fleet Center last night disclosed a party less enthusiastic about its new face than many Americans will be comfortable with. President Carter won thunderous applause with a series of thinly veiled attacks on the president. Mr. Carter questioned Mr. Bush’s military service record, lamented a “series of mistakes and miscalculations,” and said that “we cannot lead if our leaders mislead.” Even President Clinton went on the offensive.

The Democratic leadership is apparently convinced that party activists hate Mr. Bush to such a degree that Mr. Kerry can count on their votes even as he runs away from their agenda. The delegates in Boston seem to want a more direct alternative to Mr. Bush, more like the anti-war candidate Mr. Kerry had fashioned himself into during the primaries. He emphasized his devotion to civil liberties over the homeland security provided by the Patriot Act.

Senator Clinton did her best to set an upbeat tone to the evening, declining to indulge her penchant for partisan rhetoric last night. But that may be because her speech wasn’t about this year’s vote, but the first campaign appearance for 2008.