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Well, I liked it. He said some good things, although some of them were a bit subtle or encoded. I liked what he said about not wearing his faith on his sleeve, and the Lincoln quote: "The question is not whether God is on our side. The question is whether we are on God’s side." (Okay, he paraphrased it so it wasn't a question, but I don't have the speech text handy.) I liked his implied slam at Bush for being anti-science (yes, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
prog beat me to it in mentioning this). I liked the implied-implied slam against the marriage amendment (something about not using the Constitution for political purposes), although it was a bit strange coming immediately after the direct challenge to Bush to avoid negative campaigning. I was amused to hear him use Nader's catchphrase "corporate welfare". (Although he also talked about tax breaks for corporations who kept jobs in the US, and isn't that just another kind of corporate handout too?) And, if you squinted really hard, the line about not spending $50k to send a youth to jail for life could be construed as a slam on the drug war, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.
I also liked that he was energetic and fired up without looking ridiculous like Gore always did when he tried to act emotional. Kerry still has problems making his smile look genuine, though, but fortunately a Wartime President (which is definitely what he's running for) doesn't really have to smile. I was a little disconcerted by his rocking back and forth, though, and he seemed to be talking too fast at times; he was even getting a bit sweaty towards the end. Surely some GOP operatives would start spreading cocaine rumors if Bush's own drug past weren't such a liability...
There were also some verbal gaffes that made me chuckle, and I hope they're on the Daily Show tomorrow. The only ones I remember were "hair pollution" (in Harlem), and "senators and menators" (in Congress) (Dr. Seuss would be proud of that one). Oh, and there was one where he said "terrorism" instead of "anti-terrorism" or something like that. Yes, it's puerile to laugh at marble-mouth mistakes, but it's been so fun to hear all the Bushisms and we wouldn't want to be partisan about it, would we? Update: I found the advance text of his speech; the line was supposed to be "We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations", but he dropped the "anti", whoops. And I totally did not figure out that he was trying to say "Senators and members of Congress", even though I rewound and replayed it a couple times to hear him say "menators".
Finally, I was actually fairly happy that they used U2's "Beautiful Day" as his speech ended. Most of the other DNC music I've heard has been dreadful, a continuation of Clinton's watered-down Boomer nostalgia, and coming out to some weakly perky Springsteen song after Max Cleland's emotional introduction seemed like a real bad choice—why not use some majestic John Williams-esque orchestration or something? But "Beautiful Day" was a pretty good choice if they had to pick a pop tune to wrap it all up: genuinely anthemic and optimistic but not overbearing or pompous, and it's even almost current. (Too bad they're not American, though, and don't think too hard about the line "what you don't have you don't need it now" when everyone is waving "hope is on the way" signs.)
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I'm still pretty sure Bush is going to win, though. But I wouldn't mind being wrong.
prog beat me to it in mentioning this). I liked the implied-implied slam against the marriage amendment (something about not using the Constitution for political purposes), although it was a bit strange coming immediately after the direct challenge to Bush to avoid negative campaigning. I was amused to hear him use Nader's catchphrase "corporate welfare". (Although he also talked about tax breaks for corporations who kept jobs in the US, and isn't that just another kind of corporate handout too?) And, if you squinted really hard, the line about not spending $50k to send a youth to jail for life could be construed as a slam on the drug war, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.I also liked that he was energetic and fired up without looking ridiculous like Gore always did when he tried to act emotional. Kerry still has problems making his smile look genuine, though, but fortunately a Wartime President (which is definitely what he's running for) doesn't really have to smile. I was a little disconcerted by his rocking back and forth, though, and he seemed to be talking too fast at times; he was even getting a bit sweaty towards the end. Surely some GOP operatives would start spreading cocaine rumors if Bush's own drug past weren't such a liability...
There were also some verbal gaffes that made me chuckle, and I hope they're on the Daily Show tomorrow. The only ones I remember were "hair pollution" (in Harlem), and "senators and menators" (in Congress) (Dr. Seuss would be proud of that one). Oh, and there was one where he said "terrorism" instead of "anti-terrorism" or something like that. Yes, it's puerile to laugh at marble-mouth mistakes, but it's been so fun to hear all the Bushisms and we wouldn't want to be partisan about it, would we? Update: I found the advance text of his speech; the line was supposed to be "We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations", but he dropped the "anti", whoops. And I totally did not figure out that he was trying to say "Senators and members of Congress", even though I rewound and replayed it a couple times to hear him say "menators".
Finally, I was actually fairly happy that they used U2's "Beautiful Day" as his speech ended. Most of the other DNC music I've heard has been dreadful, a continuation of Clinton's watered-down Boomer nostalgia, and coming out to some weakly perky Springsteen song after Max Cleland's emotional introduction seemed like a real bad choice—why not use some majestic John Williams-esque orchestration or something? But "Beautiful Day" was a pretty good choice if they had to pick a pop tune to wrap it all up: genuinely anthemic and optimistic but not overbearing or pompous, and it's even almost current. (Too bad they're not American, though, and don't think too hard about the line "what you don't have you don't need it now" when everyone is waving "hope is on the way" signs.)
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I'm still pretty sure Bush is going to win, though. But I wouldn't mind being wrong.