Reacting to Kerry's coy convention: Why did Kristol turn bright red?

Kerry's proposal to refrain from accepting the nomination at the convention has been characterized as a trial balloon, so the reaction on the Sunday morning news analysis shows is important. I was struck by the contrast between David Broder on Meet the Press and William Kristol on Fox News Sunday, because Broder was thoroughly negative and Kristol was expressing approval. (These are verbatim quotes, thanks to TiVo.) Here's Broder:

I have to say that we used to blame Republicans as being the party where money really drove everything. It's the Democrats that are allowing money to drive everything. They moved up the primary campaign dates so that they could have more time in the Spring to raise money. Now they want to move back the nomination time so they can raise more money in the Fall. It is ridiculous! They are destroying institution after institution of political significance by this preoccupation with chasing money.

Here's Kristol, beginning to make a point:

The money is not unimportant. ... I think the networks would cover it. I think they could do this, and I think they're more serious about this than people realize. ...

Brit Hume jumped in here and said that the media and the campaign reformers would never let a Republican get away with such a devious maneuver. There would be marches, candlelight vigils! The camera at this point shows Kristol again, and Kristol has turned bright red! Kristol always appears so affable and calm: what's going on there? Kristol continues that he's talked about this over lunch with a senior Democrat "close to" the Kerry campaign:

What strikes me is they are serious about winning. They think for 20 years, the Democrats have sort of played by the rules, and the Republicans have been tougher than they, and they're not going to do that this time, and they also have this notion that this isn't an ordinary campaign. [Hume's laughter is heard.] What's so funny?

Hume:

This is so howlingly an artifice, bordering on fraud, that for us ... to play along with it and talk approvingly about how this shows how tough they are...

Kristol regroups and tries to make an elaborate point (which he garbles to some extent):

I was struck in this lunch by the degree to which they are serious about McCain. I mean, McCain has said he won't do it. I don't think he will. But they are serious about it and they have the sense that they can run a normal campaign ... But they want to try to think of ways to sort of change the dynamic, and I think, you know, Republicans can kind of sit back and smirk that Kerry's a flip-flop [sic] or that it's going to be awkward to say "I'm not quite accepting the nomination yet" and it's going to devalue the other Democratic nominees [sic] when they float the McCain idea. Underestimating these guys' willingness to win and willingness to take a little bit of ridicule and make some bold decisions to win would be a mistake, my Republican friends.

So does Kristol approve of the nonacceptance maneuver? Kristol, it seems to me, is not thinking in those terms. His focus is on what the Republicans need to do to win and he thinks, it seems, that Republicans are being too smug. They "sit back and smirk" and rely on the usual jokes about Kerry flip-flopping (just as some Democrats sit back and and amuse themselves with their Bush stereotypes). In Kristol's view, it seems to me, the nonacceptance maneuver is not worth criticizing as another example of Kerry's fence-straddling, it is a reason for the Republicans--Kristol's "Republican friends"--to get much more serious themselves about really fighting to win. I think he turned bright red because he's exasperated with the smug, self-indulgence of Republicans.