Random thoughts:

8:10ish: Watching Bush listen to Kerry speak. Shrub is working very hard to keep from sticking his tongue out and therefore often looks like he's swallowing it. He alternates between picking up his crayon to draw some more, and appearing to hide his hands down his pants.

8:32: "I speak with other leaders frequently." And my daddy is richer than your daddy.

8:33: Kerry pronounces Kofi Annan "Coffee Annan." Shrub is very upset that Kerry is "not honoring the contributions of those brave soldiers" such as the troops from Poland. Yeah, Poland -- that hotbed of intense military intelligence.

8:35: Now Shrub is upset because not all the kids on the playground will play stickball with him. No matter what he says, he still looks perpetually stoned and about to giggle.

8:46: DH announces that he thinks Kerry is a phony. Kerry utters the phrase "more of the same." Sadly, this whole debate is more of the same. All they're talking about is whether or not we should be at war. Well, the decision was already made. Can we discuss any other issues at stake? Perhaps, though, nobody is going to vote based on (other) foreign policy, ecomonics, healthcare, education, social security, the environment, etc.

8:51: Bush is hunched over the podium, leaning on it, and occasionally rocking from side to side. I'm waiting for Laura to whisper from the wings "Georgie, do you need to go potty?"

8:53: The graphic over the candidates' heads looks like ribbons bouncing off of an American flag skateboard.

8:54: "We use diplomacy every chance we get," Shrub says. He also says he wants to "send a message that we mean what we say." He hopes they never misunderestimate him.

8:56: Kerry spears Shrub on what he says is a very "telling" statement, that "the enemy attacked us." Kerry points out that Hussein didn't attack us -- Osama Bin Laden did. I can hear Democrats in grubby living rooms across the city cheering from a distance.

Shrub responds "of course I know Bin Laden attacked us. I knew that." I laughed out loud -- he's suddenly morphed into the sleazy corporate lawyer being interviewed on an SNL 60 Minutes spoof. Remember that? Martin Short, chainsmoking and insisting that Morley Safer is wrong in alleging that the phony dribble glasses weren't toxic?

9:01: Shrub tried to spike a statement back to Kerry but it backfired, probably because he didn't understand it. He speaks of acting pre-emptively (?) in the interests of US safety. Didn't he just say he attacked because we were attacked first?