Written by: Beck

I'm not too hopeful for real entertainment from this, but I wish Heinz had a chance to write & deliver a speech without any vetting from the Kerry campaign. Updates to follow once the speech begins.

Update: Heinz's son introducing her, "When I first met John, I said to myself, 'Self, the only person good enough for mom is the president of the United States.'" I guess that means he was hoping she'd get married to Bush.

Update: Intro music: "Simply the best." Tina Turner: "Better than all the rest." Me: "So much for not appearing elitist."

She looks nervous. Opening sentence, "Thank you Christopher, your father would be very proud of you and your brothers." I wonder if it's in the backs of everyone's mind that their father was a Republican congressman.

Update: She's lapsed into Spanish. Time to show off that she speaks five languages. Her South African accent is weirding me out enough already, this is just really kind of creepy. Too bad it's not French, that'd be more appropriate.

"A free, good, and democratic society," is the noblest purpose of all, in her message to all "Continental Africans living in America." I guess that doesn't apply to, for instance, Iraqis, Iranians, North Koreans, Syrians... well, you get the point.

Update: Her speaking style is very slow and deliberate. And very annoying. The crux of her speech so far has been that apartheid was bad. Freedom is good. "My only hope is that one day soon women who have all earned their right to their opinion instead of being called, 'Opinionated,' will be called, 'Smart and well informed,' just like men." This is the stuff presidential campaigns are made of? My great great grandmother was a suffragette. Women can vote now, ya know? Apartheid ended over a decade ago. This is thin stuff.

Update: Her nice, warm, fuzzy message is that America is great, anything is possible, and freedom is nice. I guess that's about what you'd expect from a wife-of-the-nominee speech, but still, it's so unbelievably non-confrontational that I'm completely disappointed. At least she made a few opening references to her dead Republican former husband.

Good grief, now she's going on about alternative fuel. Would someone please clue these people in that you can't wish an alternate reality into being? "Good environmental policy is good economics." Sure, but good environmental policy is not Democratic environmental policy.

Update: "[John Kerry] will always, always be first in the line of fire." Well, no objections here. "...The awful toil exacted by leaders who mistake stubbornness for strength." OK, so we shouldn't mistake Iraqi insurgents activities as a sign of strength. Gotcha.

Hell, there's that "Speak truth to power," phrase again. That phrase has always bugged me, not because I have a huge problem with the principle involved, but because the phrase has never sounded quite grammatically correct to me.

Update: Teresa wants to draw the mystic chords of your memory. Look out.

Heinz was a net negative. Her accent was disconcerting, her message was rambling and inconsistent, and she's kinda scary looking. I'm exhausted. Goodnight.

Update: Everyone at The Corner thinks Heinz really sucked eggs. So to speak. I'm inclined to agree.

From Tim Graham:

Brooks and Shields on PBS agreed with Frum after Teresa was done: where was the warm personal anecdotes? Must we have a show of linguistic versatility, but no fuzzy-wuzzy stories about the hubby?

From Jonah Goldberg:

I've thought Teresa is horrible for a very, very long time. I think she's smug, unfunny, unsexy, unclever -- but not uninteresting. She is a fascinating specimen, but one I find entirely unappealing. I waited until now to commit to that position. But now there's no denying it. That was without a doubt the most self-indulgent, unnecessary convention speech in modern memory. To the extent anyone is paying attention, I think she damaged herself and her husband's ticket.