kerry delivered a pretty good speech last night. if you didn’t care enough to actually tune in to get a feel for the candidate, here is the transcript. i must say, and this is a surprise for everyone, the stiff drone we’ve come to expect was nowhere in sight. he was almost, dare i say it, charismatic.

cnn did it’s best to make the whole thing an absurdity with it’s 5 straight minutes of the miked convention organizer saying “bring the balloons, where are the balloons, no confetti, more balloons, drop the balloons, i don’t see balloons, wait with confetti, all balloons! all balloons! where are the fucking balloons?!” immediately following the speech. wolf blitzer was later compelled to spend 5 more minutes apologizing for the inclusion of the word fucking in that segment which was otherwise just a great journalistic decision and totally appropriate for the close of a national convention (fucking idiots). “viewers may have heard a word a little while ago which they found offensive, we apologize, we just want you to understand it was none of us saying that word but someone else, when a hollywood director does not get what he wants he might use language like that, ha ha… interjection of some dick cheney/thereza heinz kerry obscenity reference, oh so sorry, etc, etc, blah blah.” all told wolf and the gang talked balloons for a good 15 minutes total which did a pretty good job of effectively wiping clean any warm feelings you might have had immediately following a semi-rousing speech. then to seal the deal their first reaction to the speech came from the republican convention organizer who instantly shat all over it and the man who delivered it. so it goes.

if you have not been watching here are some of the speeches you missed:
bill clinton, jimmy carter, al gore, , john edwards, ron reagan (on stem cell research), and john glenn (hell, why not? astronauts rule.)