Written by: Beck

I hope I'm spelling the guy's name right. He seems to also be one of the newly minted Democrats who are being paraded in front of us tonight.

Update: I can't quite make out this guy's accent. It sounds like a cross between a mild Bostonian and a mild German accent. Presumably if I knew the origin of the name "Shalikashvili" I'd know what his accent was.

"These deployments are dangerously over straining our army... Unless we appreciably increase the size of our army... We are in real danger of returning to the days of the hollow army." Once again, a Democrat is calling for a larger army. I can't imagine this is exactly energizing the Democratic base. These people could just save themselves some time and vote Republican.

Ah, he's Polish. He lived through the Warsaw uprising it would seem. Ironic that Poland is one of the strongest backers of the United States action in Iraq and is a staunch member of the Coalition of the Willing.

Update: He's speaking now on the good he did defending the Kurds against the "extreme brutality of Saddam Hussein." Um... are we sure this isn't a Karl Rove plant?

Update: "Never should we go to war without a comprehensive plan to secure the peace once the war has been won." He's getting very luke warm response at best from the audience. I think the constant war mongering message of the past three days is really starting to wear on the convention delegates, many of whom advocate a complete pull out from Iraq, no matter the cost.

Update: PBS was showing a man in the audience who was clearly a retired soldier. They had to cut away suddenly when he spontaneously began picking his nose. You can't make this stuff up.

Update: I guess McAuliffe and company sat down and decided that the key to winning this election was to convince the nation that the Democrats could fight the War on Terror better than Bush. They've focused entirely on Iraq, however, and have said nothing about the future of the WOT. There have been a few noises about jobs and health care, but I think they recognize that frankly, Bush has got them pretty well snookered in that department as well. If this is the best they can muster, they really will lose. The only chance the DNC has to convince America's voters that the Dems offer something more than Bush-lite comes with Edwards speech tonight and Kerry's speech tomorrow.

"You have to give them your support and pledge it here tonight to make sure that the armed forces remain the best trained, the best equipped, and the best lead in the world." I'm sorry, say it as many times as you like, but I don't think anyone honestly believes that a Democratic president would do more to support our nation's military than Bush. The Dems convention came first, they had the opportunity to out maneuver Bush these four days, and so far, all they've managed to do is checkmate themselves.