Friends--as Rush would say--I just couldn't do it. I couldn't ask the bartender at Tangier to mix me a frothing wingnut--he was just working too hard for me to be comfortable handing him a recipe prinotut and saying, "Could you make me one of these?" But I tipped, liberally, to keep my image green. All I can ask of you, readers, is that you help me be less shy and retiring in the future.

Anyhow, one of the best parts of the speech was the auto-translated crawl: ...turn the valium of the debate down... was especially precious, containing, as it did, a coded message to Leadfoot, dressed, as was her rival for the affections of the Campaigner in Chief, Condi, in pink Chanel. We should really have a crawl here at Corrente. Though what it would consist of, I'm not sure.

So I scribbled a few notes on the back of the xerox of a drinking game; "Any attempt to use a heartfelt story of an indvidual citizen's courage under pressure to make a point" came unexpectedly late. Here they are:

I couldn't find the passage in Temple Grandin's book where she remarks on the capacity of the autistic--not shared by those among us who are luckier, but distracted by bright shiny objects, by the gleaming pates of pundits, by perky and/or bearded anchorpersons--to discern whether people are lying from their body language alone. The camera does not lie; it helps, dealing with Bush, to mentally turn the sound down and just watch. What I'd like to see is a collage of headshot motion-captures from this speech: the caught-in-the-headlights fixity around the eyes, the overlarge and pointy ears, the licking of the dry lips, the Forward Lean of Sincerity, the half smirk of the travelling bible salesman who's lured the farmer's daughter up into the hayloft. Did I mention that He began the speech with a tribute to Corretta Scott King?

Hillary was good, though. She, unlike the rest of the Dems, knew she was on camera at all times, and was "caught" smiling and laughing, wide eyed and amazed, at several of the more egregious flights of fancy from His Royal Lieness--especially the applause line on health care. It's important that a predator smile. Bush knows this, but can't carry it off. Hillary can.

And I give the Dems credit for not helping Bush out with all his applause lines, though why they help him out with any is beyond my understanding; since Republican corruption is a seamless garment, ripping it open anywhere rips it open everywhere, so it's critical to be on the attack at all times. (The Republicans know this, which is why their operation runs 24/7.)

And I also give the Dems credit for giving Bush a massive, ironic standing ovation for an applause line that translated to a reluctant admission that the campaign to destroy Social Security had failed. (Bush punted Social Security to a commmission; weak, weak, weak.)

Kaine came on to give the rebuttal, but all I got was from the crawl. ("We don't do politics after 9:00PM," when Drinking Liberally officially closes.) "There's a better way." Better, I think, than "Together, we can do better." "Are the President's policies the best way to win the war on terror?" Why the rhetorical question? Why dignify Bush with the title of "President," which he has thrown away by violating his oath to protect the Constitution? Why accept the formula for endless war embodied in the "war on terror"? Why commit to "win" against "terror," an emotion? "Failure of the Federal government." No, failure of Republican government. "Bipartisan." Sure, if that can deke Bush into even more fuckups. But it takes two to tango, and I don't see a lot of hope for bipartisan solutions coming from the Republicans, who are owned by their SIC base, have no incentive to compromise, and have no notion of government as anything other as a machine that throws of cash for the betterment of themselves and their golfing buddies. "Service.... service... service." Sure, even though "competence" as a vision of leadership didn't do real well for Dukakis. What's missing is the idea that good government is a value, a human right, something that citizens deserve, not the work product of a bloodless technocrat. Still, kudos to the Dems for putting Kaine forward after only 18 days in office; that was a risk, and the Dems need to take risks in learning how to win again. I don't think Kaine is going to be annointed the frontrunning Presidential candidate for 2008, but who cares? Look where being annointed got Ed Muskie.

All in all, though we'll have to see how the Republicans torque this one, I think this was a speech that will change no minds. Any bump in the polls Bush gets after this one will be a dead cat bounce. It's g-o-o-o-o-d, as the inhabitants of Peaksville would--or must--say.

NOTE And in other "Freedom on the March" news, Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing a T-shirt. Nothing must pop Inerrant Boy's bubble! (And it's probably an excellent piece of political theatre that will. Kudos to Sheehan.)