I'm looking at a transcript of Kerry's acceptance speech. Here are my thoughts:

His parents - His mother was a den mother for his cub scout troop. His father gave him his first bicycle. Then they sent him to boarding school.

Mine were greatest generation parents. And as I thank them, we all join together to thank that whole generation for making America strong, for winning World War II, winning the Cold War, and for the great gift of service which brought America fifty years of peace and prosperity.

Fifty years of peace! What happened to the Cold War, Viet Nam, Korea, the Gulf War, and numerous police actions? Let's re-write history to make Bush look bad.

I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.

And I will slam the President and his cabinet staff with cheap shots while never mentioning their names.

We're told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. We're told that new jobs that pay $9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy we've ever had. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.

Kerry is actually on record as being for out-sourcing as long as there are no tax breaks involved.

So tonight, in the city where America's freedom began, only a few blocks from where the sons and daughters of liberty gave birth to our nation, here tonight, on behalf of a new birth of freedom, on behalf of the middle class who deserve a champion, and those struggling to join it who deserve a fair shot, for the brave men and women in uniform who risk their lives every day and the families who pray for their return, for all those who believe our best days are ahead of us, for all of you with great faith in the American people, I accept your nomination for President of the United States.

Kerry must be geographically challenged. The Boston Tea Party took place in Boston Harbor but that was hardly the birth of the nation. Concord and Lexington are miles from the convention center and he is hundreds of miles from Philladelphia where the Declaration of Independance was written.

And in this journey, I am accompanied by an extraordinary band of brothers led by that American hero, a patriot named Max Cleland. Our band of brothers doesn't march together because of who we are as veterans, but because of what we learned as soldiers. We fought for this nation because we loved it and we came back with the deep belief that every day is extra. We may be a little older now, we may be a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country.

Several things here... Max Cleland lost both legs and an arm in Viet Nam. He was off duty and on his way to get a beer when he saw a grenade. Figuring that it was his, he picked it up and it went off.

If Kerry keeps on using "Band of Brothers" he's going to have to start paying royalties to HBO.

They fought for their country... in Viet Nam. Quite a statement for a former war protestor who compared US soldiers to Gengis Kahn.

And standing with us in that fight are those who shared with me the long season of the primary campaign: Carol Moseley Braun, General Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman and Al Sharpton.

To all of you, I say thank you for teaching me and testing me but mostly, we say thank you for standing up for our country and giving us the unity to move America forward.

So the primary was nothing more than a training excersize for Kerry. Nice of the others to take off time to help.

As President, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as President, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

According to the Kay report, Sadam was working on WMDs. He just hadn't gotten very far due to the sanctions (which the French wanted lifted). Sadam was known to have WMDs in 1998 and he never accounted for them.

This was the closest to hard evidence that a president is likely to see in the next several years.

It would be interesting to ask Kerry which of the wars that the US has fought in the last 230 years were ones we had to fight. Would he like to inform South Korea, for example, that it was a mistake to shed American blood saving them from a Communist dictatorship?

As President, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war.

Get out in four months instead of twelve.

And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.

Name two wars where we had a plan to "win the peace" going in.

I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home

The French, Germans, and Spanish have already said that they are not going to bail us out. Plus, the world will remember if we cut and run. It remembered Viet Nam.

Here is the reality: that won't happen until we have a president who restores America's respect and leadership - so we don't have to go it alone in the world.

It won't happen period.

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President.

Again - fighting in Viet Nam is now defending America. How long before someone challenges him on this?

We need to lead a global effort against nuclear proliferation to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the most dangerous hands in the world.

Hey - Sadam had a long history of trying to build these weapons. Maybe we should invade Iraq.

What does it mean when 25 percent of the children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution?

It means that something else is causing the asthma.

So here is our economic plan to build a stronger America:

First, new incentives to revitalize manufacturing.

Second, investment in technology and innovation that will create the good-paying jobs of the future.

Third, close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping our jobs overseas. Instead, we will reward companies that create and keep good paying jobs where they belong: in the good old U.S.A.

Here's our economic plan:

1) Tax breaks for businesses.
2) Tax breaks for businesses.
3) Modify the tax breaks for businesses.

And we're going to return to fiscal responsibility, because it is the foundation of our economic strength. Our plan will cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare and will make government live by the rule that every family has to follow: pay as you go.

We're going to end tax breaks for businesses.

And let me tell you what we won't do: we won't raise taxes on the middle class. You've heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as President: I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education.

Tax breaks for the non-wealthy and for businesses.

Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and demands accountability from parents, teachers, and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes and treats teachers like the professionals they are. And it gives a tax credit to families for each and every year of college.

Sops to the teachers union (1/4 of the delegates) and more tax breaks.

And when I'm President, America will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected - it is a right for all Americans.

America will stop being the country that people come to for the highest quality medical treatment.

We value an America that controls its own destiny because it's finally and forever independent of Mideast oil. What does it mean for our economy and our national security when we only have three percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we rely on foreign countries for fifty-three percent of what we consume?

It means that we need to be drilling in places that you object to. Not that energy independance is going to happen.

And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future - so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Hybrid cars aren't going to do it. Bush is already pushing fuel cells. What else do you suggest?

I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another; and let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.

Rather than addressing BUsh, how about saying this to the Bush-bashers in your own party?

What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and AIDs? What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?

Stem cells have been oversold as a cure-all and Bush's policies on global warming are smarter than Kerry's.

I learned a lot about these values on that gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta with young Americans who came from places as different as Iowa and Oregon, Arkansas, Florida and California. No one cared where we went to school. No one cared about our race or our backgrounds. We were literally all in the same boat. We looked out, one for the other and we still do.

Except you got to be an officer because you were a college graduate.

Goodnight, God bless you, and God bless America.

There are a lot of other references to God. I only pulled this one. This along with references to the flag and soldiers are an attempt to sound like Republicans in order to sway the swing voters. It is rather cynical. Don't say it if you don't mean it.