I'm watching John Kerry prepare to make his concession speech on Fox News, and I'll live-blog it. I probably won't get the chance to do that with the President's speech because of some appointments...

12:55 CT: Teresa Heinz Kerry and her family have entered the Boston hall where Kerry will make his concession speech. She looks exhausted. I wonder if she might be relieved it's over...

12:56 - Kerry has just been announced and is taking the stage, broadly smiling ...

12:57 - Edwards will speak first, interestingly enough. He promises to continue to "fight for every vote", even though they're conceding. That seems to me to be a very ungracious thing to say -- as if the administration is suppressing the vote. Edwards just can't escape the urban-legend pimping ...

1:00 - Edwards gets more to the point, showering Kerry with praise and exhorting their supporters to stay involved. This is how he should have started his speech ...

1:03 - Edwards introduces Kerry. If the Massachussetts Senator is smart, he'll keep it brief ...

1:04 - Frankly, a terrific start, making Edwards look like a piker, and a rejection of the idea that elections should be won in court ...

1:07 - I just saw the first genuine emotion from John Kerry during this campaign, and the crowd really responded. Like Al Gore, he saved his best for his valediction, it appears...

1:10 - Kerry thanks his "band of brothers" for speaking the truth. One assumes he excuses David Alston, of course. Perhaps the Senator might finally consider apologizing to the rest of his fellow Vietnam veterans for slandering them and creating a political career off of their suffering? ....

1:13 - Why all the childrens' stories? I don't really get that. One would be enough. This speech has started sounding like a Senatorial ramble. It's stopped being inspiring and has become rather mundane and boring ...

1:15 - "Whether or not our candidate wins, we all wake up as Americans, and that is the greatest privilege" ... That was a good rhetorical flourish, and now he uses that to call for an end to a partisan divide. He's back on track, at least for now ...

1:19 - A good speech by an exhausted and emotional candidate -- not a great speech, but occasionally inspiring. What can one do with a concession speech? He did a better job than his running mate.

CNN is a bit cynical about the Kerry/Edwards calls for unity, interestingly enough -- they all say the bipartisanship will last exactly long enough to get to the first judicial nomination. I tend to agree. The Democrats have fueled themselves for four years on hatred, and that addiction will be hard to shake. However, trying to block nominations in a Senate in which they have a ten-seat disadvantage will be positively Quixotic, and a sign that the Democrats learned nothing from the last two elections.

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