John Kerry's Night of 1000 Laughs (not)

Well, since I broke down Edwards speech, I should probably do the same with Kerry's... except I'm still trying to wake up after watching it.

Don't misunderstand -- I could make fun of this speech all day if I tried, starting with that salute, which looked goofy more than inspirational. Maybe it's just me, but I keep thinking the gesture didn't look natural. And while some of the speechwriting work was well done, the analogies seemed a little bit more extravagant than necessary. For example, that line about trees being the "cathedrals of nature" was nicely phrased, but it came when he was trying to tell us the lessons his mother taught him. I'm just guessing here, but I doubt she used that phrase.

There was a lot of sell of his life story, especially the Vietnam story. But there was little to no sell or even mention of his service in public life since then, other than the brief mention of his career as a prosecutor. Hey, it's kinda understandable -- being Michael Dukakis' Lt. Governor is sort of akin to being a former friend of O.J., in that you try not to keep those pictures around. But Kerry won't and seemingly can't answer the charges about his Senate record -- so much so that he tried to pre-empt the legitimate attacks on his Senate voting record by almost begging Bush not to go negative.

The speech did prove that Kerry can exhibit passion, unless that sweat was just the result of the lighting. But even then, there's almost a forced quality to it, like he's too eager to make his points. Part of that stems from the fact that the speech was too long by at least ten minutes, leading Kerry to almost race through the applause lines and speak too fast for the crowd to sing along with the catchphrases. Knowing that he wrote most of the speech himself, that's not all that surprising. One other thing -- the guy really can't tell a joke to save his life, as evidenced by that gawdawful line about the West Wing at the beginning and the FDR line about the website later on. That's not really his fault -- some people have comic timing and other don't. But these jokes were badly written as well. With 98% of Hollywood backing him, you'd think they could get someone in with some good material for him to use.

In the end, he reached first base with a bloop single, but he didn't hit a home run. And that's me being generous. Jonah Goldberg, one of my favorite writers anywhere, made some more cogent points in his column in USA Today...

For most, a yes/no vote is like a light switch — only two possible positions. But for Kerry, everything has a dimmer knob. He rejects the notion that the bulb must be on or off. He thinks he can blend black and white into shades of gray — illuminating here, obscuring there.

This theme plays out over and over again in his biography, most famously in his record as both a decorated veteran and demagogic anti-war activist. He was for the Vietnam War before he was against it. In Kerry's world, squares can be circles, straight lines crooked, cats dogs. To borrow from the immortal Yogi Berra, when Kerry comes to a fork in the road, he takes it.

...Yes, of course, Kerry and, suddenly, John Edwards say al-Qaeda must be destroyed, but such statements are no-brainers politically. What candidate is going to proudly proclaim that Uncle Sam will bend over for a paddling like Kevin Bacon in Animal House and yell "Thank you, sir! May I have another!" after 9/11?

Goldberg points out that while Kerry wants us to believe that he will take the War on Terror seriously, he wouldn't consider himself a War President, just a "Jobs President." And we thought he was condescending last night. In the end, did he convince anyone to vote for him last night? I kinda doubt it. He's still got 97 days to make that case. But he's not going to have an audience this big again for a solo speech. Of course, maybe he's better off not speaking, as he proved again last night.