John Kerry gave the speech last night which many hope will push him over the top with the ‘swing voter’. Here are some of the direct challenges to the President:

“I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation – not the Saudi royal family.”

“We have it in our power to change the world, but only if we’re true to our ideals – and that starts by telling the truth to the American people, as President, that is my first pledge to you tonight. As president, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House.”

“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 advice of the military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who upholds the Constitution of the United States.”

Funny thing happened yesterday about 4 hours before John Kerry was supposed to give his speech; the administration announced the capture of a High Level Al-Quieda Operative in Pakistan. I guess timing is everything. The funny thing is in May The New Republic published an article claiming the Administration was planning this exact move. TNR claimed the Senior members of the Bush Administration were pressuring Pakistani leader Musharraf to ‘capture’ and handover a High Level Terrorist right around or on the week of the Democratic National Convention. Well everything seemed to work out fine when like clockwork at around 5:30PM EST news outlets across the nation began reporting the capture of a major Al-Queida suspect(CNN& MSNBC)

In another example of the politics of fear the FBI has issued a Terror Warning for the Western States. Maybe John Kerry was planning on campaigning out West this week.