QandO

July 29, 2004

Kerry's Night
Posted by Dale Franks

Live blogging Kerry’s speech:

The run-up to the speech is all about being American. And about being a soldier. About what a good man Kerry is.

But, of course, that’s not what any of this is about. Let’s take it as granted that Kerry is a good man, a good husband, and a good father. Let’s also grant that Kerry served with distinction in Vietnam. Let’s grant that he loves the country.

But John Kennedy said it best in the campaign of 1962, when he was stumping for congressional candidates. Why, he asked, should the government choose the Democrats over the Republicans? Republicans are equally patriotic, equally dedicated to see the country move ahead. But what makes this election so important is that the two parties have clear and distinct differences in how they want to move the country ahead.

That is as important now as it was in 1962.

With that in mind, Kerry's record as a senator is what really gives me pause. No matter how good a man he may personally be, his public policy ideas require a closer look.

This is the conundrum of politics: personally pleasant people may have foolish or dangerous public policy ideas; unpleasant and nasty people may have very good public policy ideas. The measure of a person is not the personal warmth they exude, but the rationality of their policy.

Nice biography video. Morgan freeman is always good.

Oops, two videos, instead of one. He was nice to firefighter's families after a tragedy. Touching, but not much to do with what kind of decisions he'd make as president.

Vietnam vets from Kerry's navy service. Laying it on as thick as possible, I guess. Kind of odd, coming from a guy who argued in 1992 that Bill Clinton's military service—or lack thereof—was irrelevant.

But we aren't wondering what it was he did 30 years ago in Vietnam. The big question is what he'll do now.

Max Cleland:

Kerry will make the country wat it once was, and can be again. A country that is respected. A country worth fighting for.

So, as long as France and Germany likes us, that's the measure of how good a country we are? What if our allies are wrong? What if our allies are not as concerned about America's security as, say, we are?

And, by the way, some of us think the country is already worth generations of struggle.

Kerry's on. Finally. Thank God we didn't have another Bill Clinton-style 20-minute walk through the bowels of the FleetCenter.

I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty. «Salute»

Oh, please. You served in the Navy. We got it. Thanks.

Guess what wing of the hospital I was born in? I was born in the West Wing.

In other words, the left wing. Heh. He may come to regret that analogy.

As a boy in Berlin, then my dad was stationed there, I rode my bicycle into the Soviet Zone. My dad grounded me.

Translation: Even as a young child, I felt strangely drawn to socialism. Heh.

I will restore honor and decency to the White House. I will never mislead the nation into war.

«sigh» So, it's going to be the "Bush lied" meme, is it. No matter what the evidence to the otherwise. Every intelligence agency in the Western world, including ours, concluded Saddam had WMD. They were wrong. That means that Bush was wrong. Doesn't mean he mislead anybody.

Too bad Saddam acted like he had a WMD program. Would've saved everybody a lot of trouble. Including him.

We're told that outsourcing is good. It's not. It's bad. Keep American jobs at home.

So, despite the fact that economists are essentially unanimous in support for free trade, Kerry knows better. Back to protectionism. Why not Smoot-Hawley, while you're at it?

Look! On the stage: real veterans! At a Democratic convention!

Well, it is notable, mainly because the Democratic party has not, for the past few decades, been exceptionally friendly to either veterans or active duty personnel. Nor have veterans been notably visible in the party's confabs, either.

America will never go to war because we want to, but because we have to.

I thought we'd already figured out that, when planes started flying into buildings, you're pretty much at war.

I know what we have to do in Iraq. Bring in our allies, reduce the cost, reduce the risk to our soldiers. Better leadership will bring our allies in. But I'll never let anyone else have a veto over our security.

Good luck, I'm sure Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder are just quivering with eagerness to send troops to Iraq. So which is it? Make France happy, or keep fighting terrorism.

I will increase the size of the military by 40,000 troops. Increase Special Forces. Increase funding. We will deploy every tool in our arsenal. Our principles as well as our power.

Good.

We shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in the United States of America.

The operation of firehouses is not a federal responsibility. Iraq, a country we invaded and occupied, for better or worse, is.

See that flag. There was one of those on my swift boat. It got shot up, but kept waving. It covered the bodies of my comrades.

It's gonna be all Vietnam, all the time for the next couple of months, isn't it?

I will not privatize social security. I will never cut benefits.

No, of course, not. After all, I'll be long out of the Oval Office when SocSec becomes insolvent. Let my distant successor worry about it.

What does it mean when our jobs are shipped overseas?

It means that our unit labor costs are so high that it is uncompetitive to keep the jobs here.

New incentives to revitalize manufacturing. Technology investments. Close tax loopholes for shipping jobs overseas. Reward companies that keep jobs here.

Hmm, sounds like a tax cut for corporations.

We will reduce the deficit by half in 4 years. I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the taxes on small business. I will roll back the tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 per year.

So, basically, a tax increase. But only on those greedy, bloated plutocrats. They aren't paying their fair share. After all, what have the rich ever given us?

I mean, besides jobs.

When I am president, we will make health care a right for all Americans.

But we're still getting a middle-class tax cut? Boy, those reach people are gonna have to pay through the nose, I guess. 'Cause I don't know who is gonna pay for all this.

Message to W: Lets respect one another. Let's be civil.

This coming from a guy who, less than 30 minutes ago, just accused the president of misleading us into war. Thanks for the civility, there John.

Takes balls to launch that kind of hypocrisy on nationwide TV.

I learned a lot about American values on that gunboat in Vietnam. I learned that no matter our color, race, or religion, we are all in the same boat.

Yeah. Vietnam. That's what it's all gonna come down to.

Full text of John Kerry's Speech

Just for the record, I don't remember a presidential candidate ever talking so constantly about his military service in wartime. And we've had a number of war veteran presidents in the modern era. Harry Truman. Ike Eisenhower. John Kennedy. George Bush. And, aside from Bill Clinton, Every president since FDR has served as a military officer.

But this constant harping on Vietnam is just odd. And, if the Democrats had credibility on military issues or national security, it wouldn't be necessary. The fact that Kerry stresses it so much is a big clue that even Democrats realize that, when it comes to national security, the public's trust in them is iffy.

The main message of the night was: I can be Commander in Chief.

This goes straight towards W's perceived strength. He's trying to take the space that W presumably occupies as a wartime president. The risk of this strategy, though, is that he has two decades of senate votes that can be framed quite differently than that of a man who's strong on defense. Much of his record in the senate is one of cutting funding to the military and eliminating weapons systems. That strikes me a significant weakness, and he will, at some point, have to explain why his votes in the Senate are seemingly far different that those of the fighting patriot he's tried to present himself as tonight.

With the exception of the protectionist and health care bits, this was a speech that would've been perfectly normal at a Republican convention. It was all about patriotism, the flag, national security.

What it wasn't about, really, was policy. It was about John Kerry, personally. It seems as if he's trying to subordinate policy to a personal competition about the character of George W. Bush and John F. Kerry. There were no specifics about what to do in Iraq. How to get France and Germany back on our side. Just flat statements of intent, without any specifics about how to attain the stated goals.

I'm not sure you can run that kind of campaign for four months. You can't just say "I will make America better"; at some point you have to give us a roadmap as to how you're gonna make it better.

Bob Dole tried the "I'm a better man than Bill Clinton" route, and it didn't work out too well for him.

The telling thing about the night was that what really got the crowd on their feet was criticisms of George Bush. Calling the president essentially a liar, John Ashcroft a fascist, that was the stuff the crowd ate up.

It's not love of John Kerry that animates them. It's hatred of George W. Bush.

Overall, a good speech by Kerry. It sets the bar a little higher for W next month.

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