it didn’t go into many details, it wasn’t passionate, it didn’t sink its teeth into the real reason that people will vote for him, and it didn’t make me want to head off to arizona and register voters in that swing state.
it was as flacid as i expected.
but it didn’t suck.
this has never been a partisan blog. no one owns me. no one.
you can look at george bush and see a retard and not be a liberal.
you can listen to john kerry and doze off and not be a conservative.
the republicans immediately started blogging about how the speech was flat and i wonder, what did they expect?
john kerry has been a senator for twenty years and i doubt he’s ever delivered a great speech. why would the right have thought that tonight would be any different?
people will try to judge kerry on tonight’s speech like speeches mean something.
if speeches meant something then how the hell did bush get even ten votes last time?
yes tonight’s performance was weak, but if gwb could drag a “band of brothers” up there and talk about saving someone’s life during the vietnam freaking war, then his speech could be lame too.
yes tonight’s monologue was awkward and choppy, but if bush hadn’t sent us into a $200 billion war, driving us deeper into a freefall of debt that he started with his ridiculous tax bribes i mean cuts, then his speech could be awkward and choppy too.
yes john kerry sweated up there, and he should, there’s a lot at stake, cuz some idiots actually decide who they will vote for based on canned convention chants like “help is on the way.”
i want a president on the way.
but better, i want someone to get out of the way.
so john kerry’s a well-intentioned dullard and gw bush is a creepy retard. america, this is what you get when you throw out candidates because they paid a maid under the table, or got caught cheating on their wife, or because they’re black and they’re proud, or because they happened to be born female.
milquetoast is the requirement and kerry at the mic and edwards with that fake hair and smile fulfill our crazy standards. unless youre republican, in which case anything goes (cokehead? fine. deserter? mmm-kay. foulmouthed haliburton ceo? kewl!)
to be fair, john kerry did take a few risks and he did score some much-needed points.
he made stem cell research a debate about science and not religion, where it belongs.
Two young bicycle mechanics from Dayton asked what if this airplane could take off at Kitty Hawk? It did that and changed the world forever.
A young president asked what if we could go to the moon in ten years? And now we?re exploring the solar system and the stars themselves.
A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.
And now it’s our time to ask: What if?
What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson’s, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and AIDs?
What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?
he took a nice shot at the saudi crown: “I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation – not the Saudi royal family.”
and he took a very smooth shot at the current cabinet:
I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war.
I will have a Vice President who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws.
I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders.
And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.
maybe it wasn’t that bad a speech.
maybe it helped that i watched it three times.
maybe even a dull speech by a dull democrat is all that is required to remove a republican who didn’t win the popular vote and probably didn’t even win florida.
but speeches and elections are not what im interested in as much as i care about actions.
when and if kerry wins, i will not expect him to entertain me, or wow me with words, all i care about is the bottom line.
and i doubt that im alone.
and i did like springsteen at the beginning of the speech and u2 at the end.
and yes, im ignoring the van haggar that kicked in right before my tivo stopped recording.