BOSTON &045; We now return to our regular programming. The aliens have left. The natives are back. The parking spaces have disappeared again beneath four-wheeled creatures. And the citizens of Boston were rewarded for their good behavior with a free production of the play aptly named &uot;Much Ado About Nothing.&uot;

Much ado. Much adon’t. Before the entire convention disappears into our attention-deficit-disordered memory hole, allow me to return to the magical moment when push came to &uot;shove it.&uot;

Yes, that moment when Teresa Heinz Kerry, known as Mahogany by the Secret Service, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Colin McNickle to take his question and you know what. These two little words were heard more widely than her 22-minute speech, especially since the networks ran &uot;NYPD 24/7,&uot; &uot;Amazing Race,&uot; and &uot;Law and Order SVU&uot; instead.

In case you missed it, the flap began at a meeting when THK mentioned &uot;un-American traits&uot; creeping into politics. McNickle then asked her what she meant by &uot;un-American activities.&uot; She took offense at his McCarthy spin and then came back and let it rip. And ripple.

This was widely analyzed as evidence of the Teresa-being-Teresa problem. &uot;The Daily Show’s&uot; Jon Stewart wrapped up the commentary this way: &uot;She is a loose cannon. She is a maniac. I’ve seen it. She has a suit stitched out of Dalmatians.&uot;

As Alex Jones, head of the press and politics program at Harvard, says sardonically, &uot;You never go wrong telling the press to shove it.&uot; Bush and Cheney didn’t exactly lose votes in 2000 after Bush was overheard calling a New York Times reporter an a–hole.

If my reader e-mails were typical, reactions were split between those ruing Teresa’s &uot;unbelievably arrogant tone, abrasive attitude and her hostile offensive remark&uot;

and those ruing the treatment of &uot;an independent, powerful and wealthy woman who isn’t afraid to speak her mind.&uot;

Nevertheless, there was much less ado about the background that led up to the shove. Colin McNickle, who portrayed himself as &uot;a little uncomfortable with all this attention,&uot; said he was here to &uot;report the news, not make it.&uot; He added, &uot;All I do is ask the questions.&uot;

That’s rather charming, if disingenuous. Coming to Boston, the columnist and editorial page editor promoted his adventure into Democratland this way: &uot;What happens when a conservative commentator infiltrates the Democratic National Convention? An outbreak of the truth. It’s a dirty job dealing with liberals, but somebody’s gotta do it.&uot;

Far be it for me to criticize an opinion writer. We Report/ You Decide/ I Don’t Think So. But Colin McNickle ain’t no David Broder.

And while I wouldn’t tarnish a reporter or columnist with the opinions of his publisher, it’s notable that the owner of the Tribune-Review is Richard Mellon Scaife. He’s that fair-and-balanced guy who never met an anti-Clinton conspiracy theory he didn’t fund, including the theory that Vince Foster’s death was a murder plot to protect Hillary and Bill.

McNickle, a sensitive soul, now complains that the &uot;liberals did their best to demonize not only me but the Trib.&uot; Can’t he imagine any reason for being seen as a demon &045; at least a troll &045; on pages that have routinely trashed both Teresa and &uot;Mr. Teresa Heinz&uot;?

Demons for sale? How about an anonymous and scurrilous story in the Tribune-Review in 1997 insinuating that a woman had affairs with Bill Clinton and John Kerry &045; &uot;Far from giving all to Bill, there was still something left over for Sen. John Kerry&uot;?

How about attacks last year on Teresa on the phony grounds that she funded some violent radicals through the Heinz Foundation?

At some point, heck, a gal could get ticked off.

It even happens to a Cheney. No, not that one. Lynne Cheney, the darling of the right, was heard lighting into a &uot;C-SPAN&uot; reporter who asked Dick about rumors he’d be taken off the ticket.

&uot;Shove it&uot; wasn’t the best postscript to a speech on civility. And Teresa’s definition of &uot;un-American,&uot; when she finally gave it on the &uot;Today&uot; show, was pretty wifty. But which would you rather be? A civil-ian or a doormat? The push came before the shove it.

I’m afraid it’s going to be this kind of a season. Monday, when a heckler yelled &uot;four more years,&uot; THK replied, &uot;They want four more years of hell.&uot; Her husband quickly (and nervously?) added, &uot;Wasn’t Teresa great? She speaks her mind. And she speaks the truth.&uot;

Meanwhile, Bush finally came up with his own re-election gambit. At a stop in Teresa’s hometown of Pittsburgh, he told the crowd &uot;perhaps the most important reason&uot; to vote for him: &uot;so that Laura will have four more years as first lady.&uot; Hmm, do we have a George problem?

(Ellen Goodman’s e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.)