Kerry Goes After McCain

DENVER -- Go figure.

On the night when Bill Clinton and Joe Biden delivered two of the Democratic National Convention's most-anticipated addresses, the guy everyone was trying to forget delivered the strongest statement.

Former President Clinton got the warmest response yet for a convention speaker. And Clinton went right to the point of endorsing Barack Obama, the man who beat his wife Hillary for the Democratic nod.

Bill Clinton, whose relationship with Obama has been, uh, strained, delivered precisely the appointment that was required after a bruising primary campaign.

Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world. Ready to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States.

He will work for an America with more partners and fewer adversaries. He will rebuild our frayed alliances and revitalize the international institutions which help to share the costs of the world's problems and to leverage our power and influence. He will put us back in the forefront of the world's fight to reduce nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and to stop global warming. He will continue and enhance our nation's global leadership in an area in which I am deeply involved, the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria, including a renewal of the battle against HIV/AIDS here at home. He will choose diplomacy first and military force as a last resort. But in a world troubled by terror; by trafficking in weapons, drugs and people; by human rights abuses; by other threats to our security, our interests, and our values, when he cannot convert adversaries into partners, he will stand up to them.

Barack Obama also will not allow the world's problems to obscure its opportunities. Everywhere, in rich and poor countries alike, hardworking people need good jobs; secure, affordable healthcare, food, and energy; quality education for their children; and economically beneficial ways to fight global warming. These challenges cry out for American ideas and American innovation. When Barack Obama unleashes them, America will save lives, win new allies, open new markets, and create new jobs for our people.

Biden landed some blows on Republican nominee John McCain.

John McCain is my friend. We've known each other for three decades. We've traveled the world together. It's a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism John demonstrated still amaze me.

But I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country. For example,John thinks that during the Bush years "we've made great progress economically." I think it's been abysmal.

But neither Clinton nor Biden offered rhetoric so edgy or so effective as that coming from John Kerry.

Yes, John Kerry.

The 2004 Democratic nominee for president – who was bluntly informed by grassroots activists that they did not want him to run again in 2008 – might not have gained a prime-time speaking spot at the convention except for the fact of the Massachusetts senators' early and enthusiastic support of Obama.

But Kerry did more with his time at the podium than Clinton or Biden, who has seemed oddly constrained since his selection as Obama's vice presidential running mate.

Kerry savaged McCain.

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let's compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you're against it.

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what's more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same "Rove" tactics and the same "Rove" staff to repeat the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.

But he also distinguished Obama from McCain more thoroughly, and effectively, than any other convention speaker.

So remember, when we choose a commander-in-chief this November, we are electing judgment and character, not years in the Senate or years on this earth. Time and again, Barack Obama has seen farther, thought harder, and listened better. And time and again, Barack Obama has been proven right.

When John McCain stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier just three months after 9/11 and proclaimed, "Next up, Baghdad!", Barack Obama saw, even then, "an occupation of "undetermined length, undetermined cost, undetermined consequences" that would "only fan the flames of the Middle East." Well, guess what? Mission accomplished.

So who can we trust to keep America safe? When Barack Obama promised to honor the best traditions of both parties and talk to our enemies, John McCain scoffed. George Bush called it "the soft comfort of appeasement." But today, Bush's diplomats are doing exactly what Obama said: talking with Iran.

So who can we trust to keep America safe? When democracy rolled out of Russia, and the tanks rolled into Georgia, we saw John McCain respond immediately with the outdated thinking of the Cold War. Barack Obama responded like a statesman of the 21st century.

So who can we trust to keep America safe? When we called for a timetable to make Iraqis stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home, John McCain called it "cut and run." But today, even President Bush has seen the light. He and Prime Minister Maliki agree on – guess what? – a timetable.

If Democrats are looking for a template to apply in the fall campaign, they could do no better than the one Kerry offered them Wednesday night. Indeed, had Kerry been as aggressive as this in 2004, this week's convention might well be nominating him for a second term.

Comments (13)

1. I agree that Kerry's was the speech of the night. Part of what made it so effective was the surprise factor - where is this coming from!

   But the section quoted by Nichols - contrasting Obama's and McCain's wisdom and vision on foreign policy - is the best bit yet from what's turning out to be a better convention than I think most dared to hope.

   John Kerry, who'd a thunk it?

   Posted by Rintrah at 08/28/2008 @ 07:53am

2. The line about how the McCain we see now is different from the one people once knew is gonna be one of the main refrains of the next two months, and along with connecting McCain to Bush is gonna make for an interesting battle of frames, with McCain going for the inexperience (and the ubiquitious "I was POW and you were not and I am not gonna use that...").

   Posted by onthehelm at 08/28/2008 @ 08:44am

3. The Repubs tried to use Hillary's words from before against Obama...

   the Dems should use MCCAIN's words against McCain!

   Posted by Maskdelta at 08/28/2008 @ 08:59am

4. Posted by Maskdelta at 08/28/2008 @ 08:59am

   Couldn't agree more...an easy "Two faces of John McCain" ad is yearning to be made.

   Posted by leftofcenter at 08/28/2008 @ 09:10am

5. kerry is very angry at being swiftboated by lies in '04, he did not have this temperament back then, he even has a website modeled after Obama's own, fighting smears with the truth....for god sakes and the love of all things holy and sacred, can we please kick the neocon bums out of the white house on their stinking, lying, waste of flesh arses????? better protest soon, now bush wants to outlaw protesting on washington lawn....bush is the scum of the earth, anybody who wants to vote for somebody who has stood by bush for 95% of votes, incl. iraq isn't paying sufficient attention to "the facts on the ground"

   Posted by jrs112 at 08/28/2008 @ 10:36am

6. Here, here..Kerry's speech was the best all night and to think I almost missed it - thank goodness I turned to CSPAN in the nick of time. Was totally surprised, awed and impressed! Thank you Senator Kerry.

   Posted by karch123 at 08/28/2008 @ 11:00am

7. I think it is important to note how ignorant and spineless is mcbush despite his multitude of years collecting taxpayer money on the hill, accomplishing nothing, contradicting himself at every turn, answering questions in an ignorant, uninformed manner only to have his staffers say either a: he didn't understand the question, or b: he didn't hear the question; flip a coin...better yet, mcbush couldn't purchase a clue with his umpteen untold homes and "investments"...he couldn't find his way out of a paperbag with instructions on it....this double-talking falsehoods, misstatements is the orwellian bullshit all americans are so f*(*^^( tired of....at least I am...can we get an honest *(^)^ president for once, someone who honestly is straight talking not talking out of their ass....bill clinton is about as straight talking as they come, he did a good job, as did kerry and biden did what he was supposed to do.....

   Posted by jrs112 at 08/28/2008 @ 11:09am

8. john kerry sounds like one of these marxist bloggers here at the pantheon of far-left fringe "thought", the nation.

   Posted by lvliberty1 at 08/28/2008 @ 11:61am

   Posted by frosty zoom at 08/28/2008 @ 12:29pm

9. I totally agree: Kerry made the most effective speech, as excellent as Bill's was, Kerry was even better. Bill made the excellent comparison of who was right (Obama)and who was wrong (McCain) but Kerry's comparison was even more brilliant, and no one has made this comparison before: between McCain the Senator and McCain the Candidate.Obama needs to base more and more ads on just these comparisons.

   Posted by mystic at 08/28/2008 @ 12:43pm

10. What I find truly amazing is that Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and John Kerry did, and Al Gore and Barack Obama will, give the best speeches ever given by any human. All the blogs and MSM say so! To live in a time when 7 speeches can each be the most inspiring and well delivered ever is just amazing. How lucky we all are!

    Posted by sntauri at 08/28/2008 @ 1:09pm

11. Now if only excellent speeches could automatically produce excellent results...

    They might yet, but not automatically. The conventions are just the undercard to the main event. At least this time the Democrats have put on the gloves and have started to punch, hard and, hopefully, effectively.

    Posted by libraridan at 08/28/2008 @ 3:27pm

12. The farce be with you.

    "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine" -- R.E.M.

    Posted by WWW at 08/28/2008 @ 4:06pm

13. Just one thing. This isn't a criticism but an observation, because Obama could never have mentioned one ugly known fact: The American people have lost confidence in the democratic process of voting and knowing that their voices will be heard, because the electronic voting machines have never been fixed with a traceable paper trail, despite the fact that we have had eight long years to do so. We can put a man on the moon but we can't, nay refuse, to fix this. That leaves me with the firm conviction that dictatorships never ever ever ever give up their power to transparent democratic elections. So will McCain "win"?

    Posted by mystic at 08/29/2008 @ 12:38am