I agree with you, the speech was lousy.
"Without any thematic structure to tie together many disparate points, Kerry’s meandering 55-minute address felt impossibly longer."
I also agree with you that the delivery was decent, many complained that he went to quickly, but thank goodness he did. However, as a long-prepared text, I couldn't beleive how bad it was, and I COULD NOT believe that he completely ommitted any reference to his anti-war activities. He thinks people are going to forget this.
Kerry deserves to lose just for LYING to the American people during the whole convention. They can't win if they show their true colors, and they know it.
He did mention it, it sort of code language to leftists when he said that "our generation set out to change the world blahblah." But that was the closest he came.
It was a terrible speech. And the salute thing made millions think that he has serious PTSD problems. It was a picture-perfect portrayal of the stereotype created by the lunatic left that all Vietnam veterans are obsessed with the war and are always trying to refight it.
The reason he had to hide his liberal identity and party's beliefs is he would lose by an even bigger margin if he were honest with the American people. Howard Dean IS an honest liberal but to rank and file Democrats, an honest liberal is viewed as "unelectable." A great deal of these people's anger stems from the fact they can't be who they are and they dare not be honest in public in view of the reception they'd get. A unified party? Yeah, right.