Having listened to John Kerry's speech I felt the same pleasurable sensation that you get when you listen to...elevator music, or when you eat your first boiled potato, or when you have your first grape fruit--without the medical benefits of course.  Yesterday, John Edwards found it necessary to talk about the "safety and security" for Israel. Why Israel of all the nations in the world? Does Israel's arsenal of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons make that "little" state so vulnerable and worthy of support? Why not "safety and security" for Pakistan or Tanzania or Angola, etc.  It is amazing how protective the two parties' leaderships are over the ostensible security needs of Israel.  The Democratic Party supporters have been moving away from staunch Israel's support, while Republican Party supporters have been moving in the opposite direction towards Sharon.  The rise of the influence of the Christian Right with the Republican Party is an important factor in that respect.  The propaganda video about John Kerry was so cheesy and lame; nothing new.  Kerry has to be grateful for Kerry for managing to take a movie camera to Vietnam to record his exploits.  John Kerry (like Sen. McCain) does not like to talk about his Vietnam experience so he mentioned it only 6 or 7 times tonight.   It is amazing how Iraq was mentioned, or not mentioned.  So Kerry's message is that we are doing too much good for Iraqis, opening up fire stations there, while closing them down here.  The Iraqi people did not ask for fire stations or bombs, and would manage without US help, I strongly believe.  And Kerry and others keep talking about US leadership around the world.  I have never met a French person or a Polish person or an Arab person or a Chinese person who is looking up for American leadership.  Who invented that myth?  Did you notice that Kerry messed up the sentence on the Special Forces?  He basically said that he will double the size of the Special Forces to conduct "terrorist campaigns."  That was what he said (he meant--he corrected himself--"anti-terrorist campaigns).  Teresa (in the promo movie) talked about working every day at being an American; that you have to work at it.  I did not understand.  I am an American citizen and have never worked at "being an American," and I am as American as apple (or is it potato?) pie.  And Sen. Biden talked about a conflict between "freedom" and "militant fundamentalism."  Does he mean that "freedom" (and that is always a euphemism for the US) is pitted against militant Christian and Jewish fundamentalism? Of course, not. He should have said specifically Islamic fundamentalism because that is what he had in mind.   And what is the deal with bringing the candidate's children or spouses? Are they going to be objective in public? I am sure that Kerry's daughters (if they were to be honest) would have talked about how boring their dad is, and how painful it was listening to his stories when they were children.  Similarly, if Laura Bush is to be honest with the public, she would have complained about the intellectual, nay mental, limitations of her husband, and his lack of qualification as a husband/father, let alone as a president--or "leader of the free world" as Nixon kept calling himself long after leaving office.  But such are the festivals of the conventions these days.  Do you know that FOX News is hilarious?  FOX News should be emulated in countries like North Korea and Saudi Arabia.  Are there actual people who really believe that they are "fair and balanced"?  Did you notice how much Fox focused on Al Sharpton because they know that he is extremely unpopular among many white male voters.  They kept playing excerpts of his speech so that you were under the impression that Sharpton gave daily, or hourly, speeches at the convention.  And whoever was speaking, they would search and locate Sharpton and zoom on his face.  Dont you like it when O'Reilly read emails ostensibly written to him complaining how liberal he is?  I love those.  And you know who is bothering me? (Say who?)  The Iraqi puppet Human Rights Minister.  He took the time to visit Saddam and check on his conditions.  Of all the thousands of Iraqis languishing in jail (some 90 % of whom are mostly innocent according to the International Committee of the Red Cross) he could not find a prisoner more worthy of attention than that brutal dictator?  I could not believe it, unless he was like Iraqi puppet prime minister/car bomber/embezzler/prisoners' killer/former Saddam's assassin, Iyad `Allawi, a former fan of Saddam!