With all due respect to everyone's opinions, I see a lot of problems with this article.
First, what "harsh reaction" are they talking about? The reaction on the convention floor wasn't harsh, the reaction by Bush supporters on this board wasn't harsh, and I haven't heard any harsh reaction by Bush supporters anywhere else. The only thing I've heard from the Democrats is the same thing they were saying before, a forced laugh followed by saying Miller isn't a "real Democrat". As far as Kerry "firing back" at his midnight rally, I didn't hear anything from him that I haven't heard before either. He's still tying every subject, every issue, every thing that's said to Vietnam.
We have a quote from Laura Bush in the article. “I don’t know that we share that point of view.”, is what we see first. Later, they repeat this, then add that she said Miller has an interesting viewpoint, just like she had a personal viewpoint to talk about the President, and that "his voice is one with a lot,”. Pointing out that we also heard from Guiliani, McCain, and Swarzenegger. The biggest problem I have with this is they don't say what the question was to get that response. Regardless, I don't see how this is "backing away" from Miller, though I can understand how someone could see that if they looked hard enough and didn't have the whole story.
John McCain is in the uncomfortable position of showing loyalty to his party while trying not to put himself in a position of bashing a personal friend. Again, we aren't given the question that led to the response, but I also don't see how it's backing away. Where McCain got the word unpatriotic, I don't know.
Then, the ever popular faceless, nameless "senior White House official". Senator Miller was a Democrat speaking at the Republican convention. I don't think Miller or the Republican Party wanted to make it seem like he was speaking for the Republicans. I think that was the whole point in having him give the keynote address. Here was a Democrat, speaking for himself in his own words, that did not like the turn the Democrat's leadership had taken, and he was supporting the President from the other party because of it. Also, just to point it out, the we don't know what the question was for this either.
This is a carefully crafted article that takes a couple of comments and blows them out of proportion. I have seen nothing I would consider a harsh reaction come from this, and I have seen nothing that says they are backing away from Miller.