So... Is this something to be worried about? Maybe not, if most people have already made up their minds who they're going to vote for. The thing I see as worrisome is that part of the aim of the convention was to give undecided voters some exposure to Kerry. The ultimate goal being, of course, to try and swing them to the Kerry camp. If there are many voters out there who are still ambivalent (and I, of course, have no real idea as to whether or not there are), the convention and Kerry's speech, in all their lackluster, didn't seem to do much to convince these people.

Newsweek found that voters are deadlocked at 46% over who they would trust more to handle the situation in Iraq. In March, Mr Bush had a 15-point lead.

I don't understand how Bush ever had much of a significant lead in this category once we were, like, two weeks past the fall of Baghdad (and I'm even being kind of generous giving him two weeks). Yeah, Iraq hasn't completely gone up in flames (yet), but it hasn't exactly been a pretty picture. There's been one fuck-up after another and nothing but -- as my former friend and girlfriend impregnator Trent Reznor would say -- lies, lies, lies.

Bush seems to get way too much credit for shit just because he's already there. He hasn't done a particularly stunning job on many things; indeed, he's done a right shit job on a lot of things. But people seem to think "I don't care if it might do some good, I don't want to go through the hassle of changing over." Basically, what a lot of it comes down to for many is that Bush has experience being president, and Kerry does not. Kind of a shitty catch-22. I would argue, of course, that Bush had no experience when he was given the job, and he still doesn't seeing as how Cheney and Rummy and Wolfie and Rove and Asscroft and everyone else actually run the show. In the end, Bush has more experience pretending to be president, and that's about it.

Regardless of whether or not Kerry's flaccid bounce has any meaning, I can already hear Sean Hannity ranting and raving about it. It'll go nice with some of the shit he's been repeating ad nauseam as of late, such as:

1. "John Edwards was a trial lawyer." (Yup, 'cause we've never had any lawyer politicians before.)
2. "John Edwards was never the lead sponsor on any piece of legislation that became law." (So clearly, he hasn't done anything with his time in the Senate. Out of curiosity, how common is it for Senators to manage this feat in their first term? Especially when they're out-gunned by the opposition? I'm asking since I honestly don't know.)
3. "John Kerry is the #1 liberal in the Senate and John Edwards is #4." (That doesn't mean ANYTHING.)

To borrow a joke from Steve Marmel (even though he was talking about Al Sharpton in a different sense), Sean Hannity is like the conservative See-and-Say. Just pull his string, and some stupid bullshit that the right has adopted as one of its anti-left mantras will come spewing out of his mouth.