Where Was This John Kerry in 2004?

Watching the DNC last night (on cable news channels, of course), I had the impression that Bill Clinton absolutely hit it out of the park. No, make that, he hit a grand slam and he and all the runners on base were allowed to run around the diamond twice for a total of 8 RBI's on one swing of the bat. It was a stellar speech. Between Bill's speech last night and Hillary's speech the night before, the die-hard Hillary supporters and PUMA's (Party Unity, My Ass) have got to feel like the time of dissent is at an end. One can only hope anyway. But for Obamaniacs like myself, who came to hate the Clintons during the primary season, let me just say this:

Hatchet = buried.

The emotional swing from Clinton's speech to Biden's was remarkable. I went from wanting to physically assault some Republicans after hearing from Bill to being more than a little misty-eyed at the begining of Biden's speech, and no more so than when Biden's son Beau introduced him. It was emotional. It was powerful. All of the pundits said it wasn't the best Biden speech by Biden's standards. A little too scripted, and so forth. But to the average voter who follows politics like most people follow olympic sports like swimming and track and field (i.e., only relevant once in four years), Biden's speech is going to connect. It sure made Obama's selection of Biden as VP look smart. Very smart.

But what about this Kerry clip? Holy shit! If I'm not mistaken, Kerry wound up, rared back, and cracked the Bush/Cheney legacy and John McSame right on the bridge of the nose. The irony is that all the cable news channels cut away from Kerry's speech (apparently so, at least MSNBC did), so they could talk about how no one is attacking John McSwine enough. Memo to CNN and the networks (we'll skip Fox News since they don't give two shits about objectivity): there is a difference - a big difference - between the DNC speakers actually not going after John McCain, and you creating the false impression that they are not doing it. You pig fuckers. I'm watching C-SPAN from here on out.

And oh yeah, just to point out that I too noticed the obvious point: if we had this John Kerry in 2004, this nominating convention would be all about Kerry's re-election campaign.