Clearly, Kerry did an excellent job last night, hititng all the key points on the map and making himself more human. Kerry is not what he seems, in many ways. He's the son of a diplomat who grew up away from the US and in bording schools. Despite his last name, he's not Irish, but a combination of Austrian and New England Yankee, a scion of some of the country's oldest families.

Despite one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate's history, he is tough as nails. Other people with his politics would have gone into Legal Aid, but he was a prosecutor. He had no problem throwing people in jail. He has no problem with tough decisions. Instead of going to Harvard or Yale Law, where a bright young man with a million family connections could have gone, he chose Boston College Law School, a place for people who actually want to practice law.

Kerry, in many ways, is the reverse image of Bush. He comes from the same social background, but constantly makes different choices.

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To mistake his honest doubts and questioning for weakness would be a mistake. The whole idea of flip-flopping is not about indecisiveness as much as weakness. The Bush campaign wants to depict Kerry, despite all available evidence, as a man unsure of himself, unable to make up his mind, someone too weak to make hard decisions. Coming from the man who read My Pet Goat as 3,000 Americans were being roasted alive by jet fuel, this woulod be funny if it weren't sad.

Americans mistake swagger for toughness. Bush is filled with swagger and false bravado, Kerry with the kind of quiet moral and physical courage good junior officers develop and carry on into later life. And it is important to note that Kerry has moral courage as well.

It's not that Kerry is aloof or remote, he seems to like people and have deeply loyal friends. It's that he's not outgoing, reserved is a good word. This can seem oftputting to many people. And it hides one of his most telling characteristics, toughness. John Kerry is not only tough, but aggressively so. From Vietnam, where he was so aggressive, he leaped out of his Swift boat and chased down a VC guerrilla with a B-40 rocket launcher and killed him. He chose being a prosecutor. Then, when in the Senate, he used his committees to investigate, first, Central American policy, then BCCI, now Iraq.

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The speech last night, make no mistake, was an aggressive, even brutal attack on Bush. The first line was the opening shot in a speech where Kerry called Bush a liar and a coward. He never said those words, he couldn't. But the implication was clear and direct. He attacked Bush for failing in Iraq and destroying American crdedibility.

Which was fine. But then he called Bush out, called for an "honest" debate, implying he has to fight dirty to win.

But the whole evening was designed to goad Bush.

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It is rare in American politics to have such a personal and aggressive speech towards an opponent, but Kerry has nothing but contempt for Bush and it dripped from the speech. Because this was not a policy debate, but an attempt to get Bush to react. It was personal. And, it appears, Bush knows it.

Because this morning Bush said "The most important reason to reelect me is to keep Laura Bush as first lady". A none too subtle attack on Teresa Heinz Kerry. Now, most men don't attack other people's wives, but George Bush did. This is the kind of subtle, nasty attack used by alcoholics and dry drunks. Which means Kerry can claim his own mission accomplished.