Cunning political gunslinger Dick Morris, veteran of the Clinton administration, was underwhelmed by John Kerry's acceptance speech.
Last time I checked, Sen. John Kerry was 60 years old. But to listen to his speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, you would think he was still in his 20s.He opened up his talk with a lengthy and evocative description of his childhood and what it was like growing up in divided Berlin. He told us of the "goose bumps" he remembers getting when the band struck up "Stars and Stripes Forever."
Then, after this long rendition of his childhood, he tells us at length what it was like to serve in Vietnam for the four months that he was there. So far, so good.
But then he spent only about one minute talking about what he has done since.
What did this man do as an adult? What happened during his service as Michael Dukakis' lieutenant-governor in Massachusetts and in his 20 years in the United States Senate?
What bills did he introduce? What initiatives did he sponsor? Which investigations did he lead? What amendments bear his name? What great debates did he participate in?
What did he do for his constituents in Massachusetts? What businesses did he persuade to come to the Bay State? Which elderly did he help get their Social Security benefits? What injustices did he correct?
Kerry's biography ends at 24.
Oddly, his absence of biography confirms the impression I formed of him during my White House years: He's a back-bencher. I never can recall a single time that his name came up in any discussion of White House strategy on anything. He was the man who wasn't there. We were always figuring out how to deal with Ted Kennedy or Pat Moynihan or Tom Daschle or Phil Gramm, or Al D'Amato or Bob Dole or Jesse Helms or Orin Hatch or Joe Biden. But nobody ever asked about John Kerry.
He wasn't much there then, and he's not much there now. Only now he wants us to trust him to be president.
And that sums up the Democrats' week pretty well, doesn't it? It was thin gruel in a time of war.
Posted by Alan at July 30, 2004 09:23 AM