"An acute sense of America's fallibilities"
. . . is the caption under Kerry's photo in this week's Economist article "Who is John Kerry?". To answer the question, the Economist points out, "Mr Kerry's politics are still undefined...His personality is ill-defined, too...Even his friends and allies provide few clues to his personality...His stump speeches are eye-crossingly dull . . . He has spent almost two decades in the Senate yet has no major items of legislation to his name" and he's "out of step with his colleagues", while

The contrast with Mr Bush is instructive. The president tends to go back to first principles. He strips each issue down to its essentials and presents arguments in black and white, right or wrong. He makes decisions easily, and moves on.

The Economist (which featured a "How to Beat George Bush" cover a few weeks ago, and the "Sincere Deceivers" cover I talked about on July 18), still pushes on for Kerry by saying,

For Mr Bush, America is always a force for good. The world, in his view, will benefit from the exercise of American power. At home, the country will thrive if entrepreneurial spirits are given free rein. The job of the president is to act on those principles. For Mr Kerry, the task is more downbeat and complex: to use the power of government to temper America's failings as well as to buttress its strengths.
It is not, in some ways, a compelling vision, just as Mr Kerry is not a compelling candidate. But this year, Mr Kerry and his message may appeal to voters who want to pause for a realistic and decent reappraisal of what their country stands for, a respite from four years of heroic, hectic and sometimes heedless history-making.

which to me, means, "you can stay the course with Bush, or you can go back to Jimmy Carter"! Or, in more practical terms, rather than drawing a line in the sand, we can stick our heads in the sand. Meanwhile, today's Day By Day,

and Ted's endorsement continue to remind me why I won't support Kerry. Never mind his rich-but-not-quite-classy wife's call for "dignity, always dignity": Minutes after telling her husband's supporters to restore a more dignified tone to politics, Teresa Heinz Kerry told a reporter to "shove it."
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Update: Welcome Instapundit readers!
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As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.
. . .
Update: I'm nominated! Thank you Watcher!