Yeah, Kerry still bothers me. However, he is going to WIN.

[Plaid Adder]

And that makes up for a lot.

We just watched Kerry's acceptance speech. Liza's comment was, "He outdid himself." I think she's right, and I think that whatever shit the Republicans didn't lose Monday night after Clinton's speech or Tuesday night after Obama's or Wednesday night after Edwards's, it's pretty much lost now.

As annoyed as I am about the whole "humanize the candidate by trotting out the female relatives" trick, I have to say I loved Alexandra's story about Licorice, the unlucky hamster, especially the part about how "the hamster was never quite right after that, but he lived." It's lucky that Kerry had a hamster story in the family vaults, because the hamster is a wonderfully de-stuffifying animal. Many's the time that my friends and I have gathered around a table playing the hamster title game, in which you delight yourself and others by replacing one of the words in the title of a famous literary work with the word "hamster." You can also do it with the title of original series Star Trek episodes. My favorite is "For The World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Hamster."

But I digress.

Now we're watching a local PBS talking head show and a panel is dissecting Kerry's speech. The Republican commentator keeps saying oh, he did terribly, it was a disaster...but she looks very uncomfortable and unhappy. She said, "As a Republican, I'm relieved"--but she looked totally uptight.

I'm not gonna say that it doesn't bother me that it looks as if Kerry has no intention of pulling out of Iraq any time soon or that the only mention we got was an oblique reference to the FMA and the politics of division. But long ago I embraced what you might call tailpipe politics. This administration is the potato in the tailpipe of America. Before we try to tinker with the engine, we have to get the potato out of the tailpipe. The odds are looking good for a potato ejection in 2004.

Kerry's entrance music was a Bruce Springsteen song off the Born in the USA album called "No Surrender." I've always really liked that song, although the refrain has unfortunate resonances because it is also a popular motto for Northern Irish Protestant unionists. Like all of Bruce's anthems it starts with despair ("You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes/ And follow your dreams down") and then talks itself into hope:

Cause we made a promise
We said we'd always remember,
No defeat, baby,
No surrender.

Blood brothers in the stormy night
With a vow to defend,
No defeat, baby,
No surrender.

Whoa oa oa oa,

The Plaid Adder

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. We are paving the way starting this November. We may one day

have Kuciniches and McKinneys in the Oval office.

--------------------------------------------------------
An open letter to John Kerry, John Edwards, and the DNC:
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/OpenLetter.htm

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

2. Great post plaid

and I feel the same way. On the issues, Kerry isn't nearly far left enough for me, but then very very few candidates ever are. I think I am even left of Dennis. Ah, well.

Get that potato out of the tailpipe first, indeed. We had NO chance of making progress with bush in the White House.