Edwards post-mortem

Well, I thought it was pretty good, not great. It hewed too close to his stump speech and really covered no new ground (except for the line to al Qaeda that "We will destroy you," that harkened back to nobody so much as Khruschev). I was surprised he began with the "just spend three minutes with the men who served with Kerry in Vietnam" bit, which has been used verbatim as a campaign commercial. Every time he goes into that two Americas economic struggle "You know what I'm talking about... you can't make enough money to save anything" bit, I feel like he's about to sell me Mrs. Thompson's Curing Salve or some other snake oil. And "Hope is On the Way" just sounds like a stale platitude to me.

Still and all, he's got a bright demeanor and a persuasive style. I think he did his job, for the most part. I've read one keen insight that his entire "Two Americas" motif was completely undercut by the great Barack Obama's "Stop trying to divide us, we are the United States of America" speech. Fortunately, nobody in politics has so much as a daylong attention span.

Which is why Edwards' speech immediately doesn't matter, because the big one is tonight. John Kerry is apparently bringing out the big guns for this one, enlisting Kennedy speechwriter Theodore Sorenson ("Ask not what your country can do for you") to help. I think he'll do just fine, and I think he'll reach his goal of giving the electorate a reason to vote FOR somebody rather than simply AGAINST Bush.

Meanwhile, let's not forget about the nearly 100 dead in a series of bombings in Iraq yesterday. And the fact that aid groups are leaving Afghanistan in droves because it has become so dangerous there. Bush's Wars are still causing much death, destruction and pain. It's where he will ultimately be judged.