I guess I am obliged to comment on John Kerry's speech last night.

I read the entire speech before it was given and I only heard part of it - I was asleep for the night before it was over).

My impression was that it was a generally good speech and was definitely delivered with a lot of oomph that seemed to be missing from Kerry's stump speeches.

I agree that he definitely made some clear distinctions between himself and President Bush as long as you accept the underlying premise of the comparison - Bush lied when he said that Saddam had WMDs, Kerry didn't lie when he said Saddam had WMDs. Bush has not done enough to deter terrorism despite the fact that there have been no attacks here since 9/11. Outsourcing of jobs is always bad and is in some way important to the health of our economy. The "we" paying down the debt and creating jobs in the '90s was not a Republican-led Congress.

I am also curious what Kerry's definition of going to war "only when we have to" is. What happens when a member of our refreshed alliance asks us for help? If Russia attacked Poland, would we "have to" go to war? Did we "have to" bomb Bosnia? Or was that OK because other people died? Is it OK for us to let people die in Darfur and starve in North Korea because we prefer to rely on the promises of dictators and sanctions? What moral principle is that based on?

Another interesting point I've heard made - is it true that those few months in Vietnam 40 years ago really provided him with so much leadership experience that it's barely necessary to mention his record after 20 years in the Senate?

Speech stats - "middle class" was mentioned eight times. Some variant of "terror", five times. "Iraq", three times. "Al-Qaeda" and "Bin Laden", zero times.

I wish I had the time to put something more thoughtful together, but I've got to get back to my real job.