A hundred thousand balloons are stuck on the Fleet Center ceiling!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

P.S. The convention director said “f*ck” on CNN!

P.P.S. The balloons and confetti now appear, finally, to be dropping from the ceiling correctly.

Is it just me, or is it a really bad sign that the post-speech balloon drop contained much more drama than the speech itself?

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds says it was “a not-bad speech, badly delivered. It was short on substance, and long on cliches, but nomination acceptance speeches often are. It was too long, and his delivery was rushed. I don’t think it will swing the momentum in his favor, which is what he needed. It may turn some people off.”

Polipundit writes:

[H]is speech writers have made the fatal mistake of “dumbing down” his speech. Rather than “letting Kerry be Kerry,” they’ve tried to make him sound like George W. Bush or John Edwards. With the result that Kerry is delivering one of the worst acceptance speeches in recent memory. … This is an unmitigated disaster for the Kerry campaign. His convention bounce is going to be nowhere near as large as I feared it would be. … As a conservative, I’m loving this nationally televised self-destruction of an ultra-liberal Democrat. … Kerry is old, craggy, negative, and finished. His only hope is to turn it around in the presidential debates. And to hope that the GOP stumbles in its convention.

Ed Morrissey: “He learned nothing from Obama or even Edwards. He’s not talking with people, or even to people, but at people. … ‘Help is on the way’ - now it’s help? Last night it was ‘hope.’ No wonder they have trouble staying on message.”

Stephen Green: “‘I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting for duty.’ Not only was that cheap and tacky (like his tie, which is at least expensive), but he delivered a limp-writsted salute.” (Photo here.)

Phil, a commenter on InstaPundit: “This was for sure my favorite part: ‘We will double our special forces to conduct terrorist operations.’ — John Kerry.”

Watching CNN, I get the sense that the pundits are trying desperately to pretend that it was a good speech.

This morning, I wrote, “If the speech is a flop, the convention will have been a failure. If the speech is a hit, the convention will have been a success.” So now that it’s almost done, what do I think? Well… I’d say it’s neither. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just… eh.

“Senators and menators of Congress”? Heh.

UPDATE: Becky writes: “This is boring. I just can’t think of any witty commentary. He’s not giving me anything to work with.”

Yeah, I’m kinda bored too. Okay, so maybe the speech is bad.

Nice shot at the Saudi royal family, though.

CAN WE PLEASE SEND CLINTON INSTEAD? Or maybe Obama? Or Edwards?

ZZZZZ: He’s still talking. Here’s a good analysis of Kerry from Ann Althouse’s son:

[In the primaries], everyone was voting for him because they thought he would appeal to someone else. And those voters believed at the time that that was the politically savvy thing to do. But it was actually politically disastrous: if everyone was just voting for him because they thought someone else would like him, then NO ONE ACTUALLY LIKED HIM.

One problem is that if you’re trying to choose the most “electable” person, I would imagine that you’d be likely to do it by process of elimination — by ruling out all the candidates with obvious political liabilities. I think this is the number-one reason why Kerry won the primaries: he was the only candidate who didn’t seem to have anything particularly wrong with him. Edwards was too inexperienced; Clark was a poor campaigner; Dean seemed kind of insane; Gephardt was too liberal; Lieberman was too conservative. So they choose the one candidate who has no qualities that would really make anyone hate him. The problem is that he also has no qualities that would really make anyone like him either.

He just finished! But where are the balloons?

Kerry just accepted the nomination.

I tried to audio-blog it, but he stalled too long and I gave up. :)

audio post powered by audblog

audio post powered by audblog

I don’t like Joe Biden (see: RAVE Act), but I thought his speech was very, very good. (Well, except for the part where he called Kerry “John Kennedy” by accident. Heh.) I will post some quotes from it later.

Wesley Clark is speaking now. Lieberman is up next. YAY!

I’m leaving work now, but Becky will be blogging Joe’s speech.

UPDATE: I’m home. I missed Lieberman’s speech entirely — alas! — because the TV stations that I can get on my cell phone didn’t air it. (Bastards!) But here is Becky’s post. “I like hearing Lieberman talk about the war and the ideological battle behind it,” she writes. “Stupid Islamo-fascists. I want to poke them in the eye.”

Kerry’s acceptance speech is just moments away. I feel like just watching instead of blogging it, but tune into Becky’s blog for live coverage.

The New Republic, July 7:

This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban’s Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. … This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November. … According to [a Pakistani intelligence] official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that “it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July“–the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

CNN, July 29:

Pakistan has arrested a senior al Qaeda figure with a bounty of up to $25 million on his head, Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat told CNN television Thursday.

He said the suspect had been captured during a raid in central Pakistan a few days ago. He did not identify the captive but said he was “a person who is most wanted internationally.”

Al Arabiya satellite news channel quoted Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as saying the suspect was arrested Sunday.

Arrested Sunday, but not announced until today! And they’re still not telling us who it is… dragging out the suspense, eh?

Al Arabiya reports that the suspect “may be” Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, one of the 1998 embassy bombers; the FBI “is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to his capture,” so he would fit the profile described by CNN, but would not qualify as the sort of “HVT” who would knock John Kerry down into the second spot on the nightly news.

If that’s the case, fine. But on the off chance this is Bin Laden, Omar or Al Zawahiri — and if that part of the news is announced, say, oh I don’t know, halfway through Kerry’s acceptance speech — I trust that Andrew will gain a new respect for TNR and its “incredible, unverified story” of a July Surprise conspiracy.

I’m not saying I expect this to be the case, I just find the timing most intriguing (albeit a day off). It’s probably nothing, but one can’t help but wonder.

Stay tuned…

UPDATE: Well, no sooner do I post this than I see that they have now announced it was Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.

Well, good. Another terrorist off the streets.

No sooner had I made a donation to John Kerry with $25 of my last remaining $75 of unbudgeted, pre-law-school money (not counting my standard $55 per week spending allowance), when I remembered: I need to buy some short-term catastrophic health insurance, because my Intertec policy expires on Saturday (July 31) and my Notre Dame Student Health Insurance doesn’t kick in until Aug. 15 — and you never know what might happen (as Kate Morran wisely reminded me last year) even when you’re only talking about a period of two weeks.

So I shopped around online, and found a 30-day Fortis policy (it seems 15-day policies aren’t available except for travellers and people living overseas). Naturally, the premium plus the application fee add up to a total of… you guessed it… $50. So there goes my “extra” money. Adios. :(

If something does happen to me between Aug. 1 and Aug. 14, I’ll owe a $1,000 deductible out of pocket, plus 20% of the costs… but that’s a heck of a lot better than owing 100% of the costs, right?

Anyway… I’m insured. And, uh, pretty much broke. :)

I just donated $25 to the Kerry campaign.

It’s my first political contribution since I gave the same amount to Edwards on Feb. 22. I can’t afford it, of course, but I figured I should at least make a small donation and thus put my money where my mouth is in terms of beating Bush. I did it now because tonight’s acceptance speech is a campaign-finance deadline, according to several e-mails I’ve received from the campaign. (I believe they formally changed the convention rules so that the nomination is officially conferred when Kerry accepts it, thus giving them an extra day to fundraise. I heard the Rules Committee weasels talking about this on Monday when I was watching on C-SPAN.)

Anyway, Kerry’s aforementioned speech will be roughly 55 minutes long, according to ABC News’s The Note:

Says ABC News’ Dan Harris, the best reporter on the Kerry beat: “Campaign advisers are calling it a ‘positive’ speech — not an ‘attack’ speech. It will, however, contain contrasts.”

“Kerry will, per the campaign, communicate to the nation ‘what’s in his heart.’ It will be ‘very personal’; he will talk about personal experiences from his life, including Vietnam. He will talk about how those personal experiences have shaped the message of his campaign: ‘Stronger at home, respected in the world.’ There will be light moments, too.”

“The speech will run 55 minutes. When pressed on whether this is a wise move, given Kerry’s reputation for being a less-than-riveting speaker, Communications Director Stephanie Cutter bristled. …

“‘He is a riveting speaker,’ she said. Furthermore, she argued, it’s a ‘really good speech’ and one that he wrote (longhand, on yellow legal pads) — so he will ‘knock it out of the park.’“

Ah, self-delusion among the candidate’s top aides. Always a sign of a healthy campaign.

Read the whole Note for much more.

The Note also notes (God, I love saying that):

[ABC News’ David Chalian reports:] “Although the presumptive vice presidential nominee delivered an ‘acceptance’ speech on Wednesday, he won’t be formally nominated until this evening. His name will be placed in nomination by former Rep. Harvey Gantt (N.C.), Rep. Raul Grijalva (Ariz.), and Senator John Breaux (La.), but the convention will quickly suspend with the roll call, and Edwards will be nominated by voice vote.”

“It is then likely that he will take to the stage tomorrow night (at some point in the evening prior to Senator Max Cleland’s introduction of John Kerry) to formally accept the nomination with a quick ‘I accept … ‘ type of speech to make it official.”

After the Senators John accept their nominations, the biodegradable fun begins. From the FleetCenter rafters 85 feet in the air will drop 100,000 air-filled red, white, and blue eco-friendly balloons, and 1,000 pounds of red, white, and blue paper confetti.

Is Arizona, which was an al-Qaeda hotbed in the run-up to 9/11, in the terrorists’ sights once again? Could be, according to the right-wing Tombstone Tumbleweed of Tombstone, AZ:

TWO GROUPS OF MIDDLE-EASTERN INVADERS CAUGHT IN COCHISE COUNTY IN PAST SIX WEEKS…

A flood of middle-eastern males have been caught entering the country illegally east of Douglas, Arizona. The increased patrols in the Huachuca Mountains area of Cochise County, seems to have diverted the flow of OTM’s, “other than Mexicans,” east to the Chiricahua Mountains. …

On or about the early morning hours of June 13, 2004, Border Patrol agents from the Willcox station encountered a large group of suspected illegal border crossers, estimated to be around 158, just east of the Sanders Ranch near the foothills of the Chiricauha Mountains. 71 suspected illegal aliens were apprehended; among them were 53 males of middle-eastern descent.

According to a Border Patrol field agent, the men were suspected to be Iranian or possibly Syrian nationals. “One thing’s for sure: these guys didn’t speak Spanish and after we questioned them harder we discovered they spoke poor English with a middle-eastern accent; then we caught them speaking to each other in Arabic…this is ridiculous that we don’t take this more seriously, and we’re told not to say a thing to the media, but I have to,” said the agent, who spoke to the Tumbleweed with the promise of anonymity.

[Information officer Andy] Adame confirms the groups of illegals were apprehended on those dates in the same area but stated, “There were no middle easterners in the group. Every single one of them was Mexican.” …

[But] the information was corroborated by a local rancher in the area who reports that sightings of groups similar to these are on the rise. …

On or about the evening of June 21, 2004, agents from the Willcox Border Patrol station apprehended 24 members of a larger group of Arabic speaking males located just east of the Pierce/Sunsites area of Cochise County. At least half of the males escaped capture and disappeared into the United States.

A couple of important notes. First, I don’t know how much stock to put in this story. I’m unfamiliar with the source, but it’s clearly a rather right-wing, harshly anti-illegal-immigration site just from the word choice (”invaders,” etc.), and it’s entirely possible that somebody is just griding an axe here.

Second, not all Middle Easterners or Arabic-speaking men are terrorists, obviously. Maybe these are just run-of-the-mill immigrants who want to make money and pursue the American dream, but fear they will not be allowed into the country legally because of post-9/11 immigration restrictions and ethnic suspicions.

On the other hand, maybe they’re terrorists.

Lending credence — perhaps — to the latter explanation is this AP report:

The FBI warned police in California and New Mexico that it received information about possible terrorist activity in their states. However, the warning wasn’t specific about particular targets or a method of attack, a federal law enforcement official said Thursday. …

The vague warning was distributed to authorities in California, New Mexico and some other Western states the official did not identify.

Well, I figured this was at least worth mentioning. If it is true that large numbers of Middle Eastern men are crossing the border illegally, it’s only prudent to wonder whether something is up (just as it’s prudent to wonder about that whole “Terror in the Skies” thing).

We report, you decide.

UPDATE: More suspicious activity in the Southwest:

U.S. officials are investigating a South African woman whom they say tried to board a flight near the United States-Mexico border with an altered passport, amid reports that South African passports have ended up in the hands of terrorists. Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed, 48, was arrested on July 19 at the McAllen airport and charged four days later with illegal entry into the United States, falsifying information and falsifying a passport. She was denied bail on Tuesday by a federal magistrate. This comes as U.S. officials confirm a threat of al Qaeda recruiting non-Arabs to plan an attack inside the United States.

More here.

Today’s DNC schedule is out. Looks like Joe Lieberman will be speaking around 5:15 or 5:30 PM MST… right between Wesley Clark and Nancy Pelosi. Heh. Lieberman, then Pelosi: there’s a stark ideological contrast if ever I saw one.

Barney Frank will be speaking today, too, around 4:45 or so. Yay!

Aw, shucks:

So how did Pretty Boy do? Very well, says Andrew Sullivan. Not so well, says Jeff Taylor. Eh, says Mickey Kaus.

Arizona swing voter Becky liked it: “I gotta say, he’s way more appealing than Cheney. … I find myself drawn to Edwards’ words. He has skills. His inflection is great. … He has nice eyes. … Gosh. I’m feeling mildly inspired.”

Becky also loved Elizabeth Edwards: She “seems like such a friendly woman–the kind of lady that would clean your scraped knee if you fell off your bike in front of her house and she’d give you a cookie to make you feel better. I like her SO much better than [Teresa Heinz Kerry].” Amen!

Myself, I agreed roughly with Glenn: Edwards was good, though not as good as I’ve seen him in other speeches. But good enough to remind me yet again why I wish the ticket was reversed: Edwards-Kerry ‘04! Oh, well.

Boinkette, meanwhile, asks the question that’s on all of our minds: Gay or Italian?

All week long, Becky and I (and countless other bloggers, commentators and pundits) have been obsessing over the significance of every DNC speech, every moment from gavel to gavel. Yet, with the country at large paying scant attention to the convention — ratings are at their lowest levels ever — John Kerry’s acceptance speech tonight is probably the only thing that really matters. If the speech is a flop, the convention will have been a failure. If the speech is a hit, the convention will have been a success. It’s really that simple.

Kerry’s mission tonight, should he choose to accept it, is to turn anti-Bush voters into pro-Kerry voters, USA Today asserts. Senior adviser Tad Devine “says the campaign wants people who are for Kerry ‘because they’re very opposed to George Bush’ to come away with ‘a much stronger basis on which to support John Kerry,’” the newspaper reports.

Excerpts after the jump.

(more…)

John Kerry has cancelled plans to campaign in Connecticut tomorrow:

George Jepsen, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Wednesday evening that “the logistics don’t work out” for the Massachusetts senator to travel to West Hartford the day after he is expected to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for president.

Kerry will instead head to Pennsylvania, one of several battleground states between him and President Bush, Jepsen said.

“We recognize that Connecticut is not a target state because we’re solidly in Kerry’s camp,” Jepsen said.

So I won’t be just barely missing him yet again, after all.

Still no word yet on when the Newburgh, NY event is scheduled for. If that one isn’t cancelled too, and if it’s sometime after midday Saturday, I plan to be there.

More details on what Senator Joe might say tonight:

BOSTON — Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, in what he said was a preview of his scheduled Thursday speech before the Democratic National Convention, told a group of Jewish Democrats honoring him here Monday that it was time to do ideological battle with “Islamic terrorists.”

In remarks to about 200 people at a luncheon sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council, which calls itself the national voice of Jewish Democrats, Lieberman said those who want to crush terrorism must understand that “differing visions of what God is” are at the root of the problem. …

…”We are in a war against terrorism, but it’s really a war against Islamic terrorism. We’re going to win it, not only on the battlefield, but by reaching out and building bridges to the Muslim moderates. I’m going to speak about some of that on Thursday, but also about the war in Iraq. I continue to believe very strongly that we did the right thing in overthrowing Saddam Hussein.”

Scroll down or click here for my previous Lieberman speech preview post. He is scheduled to speak tonight in “prime time”… not sure yet exactly when.