Alright, so the DNC is pretty much over. I saw most of the "big" speeches, except for those on Monday night. That kinda pisses me off, since I would have liked to have seen Al Gore's speech. Al Gore is fucking funny, and I'm not being sarcastic. The guy's a comic's comic, which means that he's hilarious but people just don't get him. You don't need to know why Al Gore is funny, you just need to know that he's funny.

I expected the week's speeches to contain a bunch of empty rhetoric and future broken promises (should they get elected). You know, the stuff campaign speeches - whether from the Rs or the Ds - are made of. Some brief impressions of some of those speeches:

• Bill Clinton: We already know how I feel about Bill Jeff's speech. Man's got skills.
• Barak Obama: We've all heard the phrase "rising star" used to describe this guy so much that we'd kinda like a fucking star to fall on us to get it to stop. That's the media's fault for not being able to come up with anything new, because the tag is clearly not without merit. This guy's got some skills, too. He's articulate (unlike Bush), energetic (unlike Kerry), and passionate (unlike, well, damn near everyone). He had that line about how "There is no Liberal America, and a conservative America, there is the United States of America." Being a liberal, I of course hate America, but that line was fucking slick.
• Teresa Heinz Kerry: The woman is smart, the woman is rich, and the woman damn sure has her own agenda. And you know what? I like that. Such a stark contrast to that dumb bitch Laura Bush, perpetually living in her husband's shadow (and what a pathetic shadow to live in, I might add). I'm -- dare I say it -- rather turned on by Teresa Heinz Kerry. I know what you're saying: "Isn't she a bit old... Especially for you?" While I must admit that she's well past those formative years I'm so fond of, and while I have to say I'm not physically attracted to her (although the accent doesn't hurt), I can't help but go for a woman like that. Sure, docile and non-combative sounds like a good deal in theory, but there's no fun in that racket. Teresa's purpose was, ostensibly, to help us peer into the more personal side of John Kerry, which she really didn't do much of. That's okay -- I'm not expecting much of that at this point. I'm just happy knowing we'll have one, if not two, sets of balls in the White House should Kerry manage to pull this election off.
• Howard Dean: The Democrats need to wheel this guy out a little bit more, because the guy can still get a crowd going. Of course, they have to control his appearances, because we don't want people to think too much about the Scream Heard Round the World seeing as how anger and emotion are some kind of federal offenses nowadays.
• Ronald Reagan, Jr: Ron Reagan was there, of course, because of his name. Even if everyone knows it was a plant, his presence was still a good move on the part of the Ds. My favorite part about that was listening to Michael Reagan later bitching about Ron Jr.'s speech. All I could think during Michael's commentary was COUGH*bitteradoptedchild*COUGH. Oh, and Mike: I am so going to fuck your daughter.
• John Edwards: Every time I see this guy, the first thing out of my mouth is "Goddamn it that guy's good-looking." Seeing as how his oldest daughter is nothing to write home about and the Kerry daughters are, well, let's just leave that one alone, I think the one I'd most want to have sex with out of the two families is John Edwards. All bullshit aside, though, he does add some of the energy that Kerry's campaign desperately needs. His speech was, of course, full of lots of talk and promises and light on substance. Again, expected. Oh, and it included the one thing I hate more than anything, whether it's coming from the left or the right: promises to "destroy" the terrorists. That is nothing but bullshit macho posturing, and I wish everyone would just knock it off. Just say you're going to fight terrorism and then go out and do it, okay? I don't need promises that are pretty much impossible. Still, the speech Edwards gave was pretty good - nothing spectacular, but right about where it needed to be. And hey, have you heard that he was a trial lawyer?
• John Kerry: Much like the speech his running mate gave, it was heavy on promises and light on substance. For the billionth time, that's expected. You could tell he was nervous in the beginning, but he settled in and rode the speech out quite nicely. There was nothing particularly inspiring in the speech, nothing unexpected. Once again, it was what it needed to be. He covered a decent number of bases and got the crowd into it. He made a point to call out the Saudis, which I'm always up for. Also, his handling of religion, by quoting Lincoln who (apparently) said something to the effect of how we should not believe that we have God on our side but instead should hope that we're on the side of God, was pretty smooth. I don't know if the speech will help the Kerry cause at all, but it shouldn't hurt.

One obvious thing, though. Every single speaker? Orders of magnitude better than Bush and his rhetorical skills. Everyone on stage was way smarter and more qualified to be president, and that includes Edwards's two young children.

So yup, that's about it. Blah blah blah blah... Democrats. Speaking of Democrats, you're never going to see as many Democrats and leftists on Fox News as you saw over the past few days. One thing about Fox News is that they normally try to make it look as if they're "Fair & Balanced," whether it's DNC time or not. This, of course, is a full and total scam. Look, Fox, I don't care if you're right-wing, I honestly don't. As I pointed out in that last audio post, I've learned to have a damn good time with that fact. There's bias everywhere, and we just need to be smart enough to realize that and do what we can with it.

When you have people like Gerondo and Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly as your main voices, you're fucking right-wing. When you have Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, editors of The Weekly Standard -- described as being a "must read" at the White House seeing as how it's their fucking script -- as two of the panelists for your DNC commentary, you're right-wing to the core. Just own up to it, okay? When I disagree with you, sure, I'm going to get pissed; that's what I do. But I don't get infuriated until you start trying to bullshit about who and what you are. If I wanted someone to lie to me, I'd just get myself a girlfriend.

Newt was on Hannity and Colmes one night. Colmes doesn't get his name scratched out this week, as he was actually showing some balls for a change, partly since he had some backup (much as I am more of a loudmouth when ETP is close by because I know he'll keep me from getting killed). Gingrich was pushing the idea that the DNC was a "makeover convention," a phrase coined by Republican National Committee chairman and former lobbyist extraordinaire Ed Gillespie. Newt contradicted himself, though, when he went off about how not diverse the DNC was, as opposed to how diverse the Republican convention is going to be. The diversity of the R convention being, naturally, a total sham. As Bill Maher pointed out when he was recently on Larry King, at least the Ds put people up there who represent who they are. Putting up people like Rudy Guilliani and Governor Arnold for the R convention is bullshit. Those guys, while Republicans, are much further left than the ticket that's going to be put on display at the RNC next month.

One thing that was pointed out was that the Democrats were definitely going with a positive convention motif and keeping the Bush bashing to a finite but limited quantity. Was it a mistake to play (relatively) nice instead of going on the offensive? Tough call. The Ds are in a bind. They need to be positive (supposedly; I think that mindless "positivity" is bullshit, but we all know how I am) but at the same time critical of Bush and where we're at. I think Kerry did a good job of tackling this issue in his speech, however briefly, when he said that it was cynical to think that America couldn't do better no matter where we find ourselves at right now. The tactic to run with was a toss-up in many ways, but I can't help but come away unsatisfied. The Ds are doing what they do best, being limp dicks about everything. But I can at least give them some credit since they are stuck with a shitty decision, although they did do quite a bit (or quite a little, depending on your perspective) to put themselves into that position.

All throughout the convention, and especially tonight, all I could think was "Kerry & Edwards, you guys have got to get this done." Yeah, I know, I complain about the Ds being perpetually flaccid, but that sadly seems better than a rock-hard administration that loves nothing more than fucking this country (and not to mention the rest of the world) up the ass. Much like the Ds with the direction to take their convention, Americans are left with a shitty predicament come this November. In the end, I'm less than enthused about a Kerry administration, but I'm fucking stoked compared to when I think about a second Bush term.

Yeah, I know, I've said that over and over again, even moreso than many other things here. But shit, that's all I've got. Besides, I'm trying to be pooooositiiiive. Man, fuck this bullshit.