Thursday, July 29, 2004
Kerry gave a Great Speech Tonight but What did I Hear Afterwards?
Tonight Sen. Kerry gave his acceptance speech of the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States. I felt like it was only slightly less charismatic than Edwards' speech last night. There were some highlights worth mentioning. He talked about the flag, and how he was going to make Americans feel good about it. He again emphasized that he will send young people to war only when we must, not when we merely can. The most interesting part was his addressing the religious issue. The Bush administration likes to say or imply that God is on its side. I hear this all over the place. God was on the Nazis' side; God was on Saddam Hussein's side, God was on America's and Britain's side and so forth. This is one of my main objections to most people talking about God and evil, is that God winds up on the side of every faction on Earth, and that evil is always what the other guys are doing. John F. Kerry turned this around in a manner similar to what John F. Kennedy did in the 1960s: he asked whether we were on God's side. What a switch! This takes the wind out of all these people above, including Bush. Are we on God's side? It still sounds overly mainline religious, but this goes a long way to removing one of the objections to bringing up such religion in the political arena. It gives Bush a question he needs to answer. Of course I believe that if there is a God, then he (it?) does not have sides, since sides is a human concept, and God is way beyond that. But he has gone a long way to combating the dangers of religion, and Christianity and Islam in particular.
So a really good speech, and it already has the polls soaring for him; I heard of something like plus 5 to 6 points. But what did I hear afterwards? I heard someone saying "Balloons! Balloons! we need more Balloons!", reminding me of the Hessian commander saying "Wir haben nur ein Canon. Wo sind die andere Canonen?" in a movie about Washington crossing the Delaware on TV a number of years back. This guy kept saying "We need more balloons! Where are the balloon?" Then I heard him say "Where the f--k are all the balloons?!" Did I hear that straight? The guy used the f word, and he used it inappropriately. He was clearly too stressed out to have sex. Well, folks, this is the Democrats' answer to George W. Bush's major league sshole and Cheney's recent explosion of f language. The media and the Republicans will have a field day over this one tomorrow morning. It may even eclipse Kerry's speech, this use of the f word. I hope not. Kerry gave a good speech, and though he needs to fill in more details in the upcoming campaign, it appears to be a good start to Kerry's post-Convention campaigning as he endeavors to send George Bush back to Texas.
So a really good speech, and it already has the polls soaring for him; I heard of something like plus 5 to 6 points. But what did I hear afterwards? I heard someone saying "Balloons! Balloons! we need more Balloons!", reminding me of the Hessian commander saying "Wir haben nur ein Canon. Wo sind die andere Canonen?" in a movie about Washington crossing the Delaware on TV a number of years back. This guy kept saying "We need more balloons! Where are the balloon?" Then I heard him say "Where the f--k are all the balloons?!" Did I hear that straight? The guy used the f word, and he used it inappropriately. He was clearly too stressed out to have sex. Well, folks, this is the Democrats' answer to George W. Bush's major league sshole and Cheney's recent explosion of f language. The media and the Republicans will have a field day over this one tomorrow morning. It may even eclipse Kerry's speech, this use of the f word. I hope not. Kerry gave a good speech, and though he needs to fill in more details in the upcoming campaign, it appears to be a good start to Kerry's post-Convention campaigning as he endeavors to send George Bush back to Texas.
