The Education of John Kerry

Just turned off This Week with George Stephanopolous, and it was a very good end to what was a difficult week for Democrats. John Kerry was absolutely off the chain. You could sense an urgency and a passion in his voice that I never heard in all of 2004. Kerry actually posted on Daily Kos a couple times this week, and clearly he's trying to be more forceful as a public speaker. While not changing the ideas or the policies, he's changed the presentation. And his framing was exquisite.

I've got a paraphrased transcript right here:

Kerry on This Week (4.00 / 2)
(paraphrased as fast as I can type)

We had OBL cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora and this administration has misled the public and did not do everything they could to capture him. There were forces that could have been brought in.

They're trying to claim that they're stronger and better on the war on terror. The fact is, they had a chance to capture OSL and they didn't do it. Things are going backward in Afghanistan... Lack of genuine leadership there.

One of the reasons we haven't been attacked here is that they've been so successful attacking us in Iraq and elsewhere. Look at our lack of options in North Korea, we're overextended, this administration is not effectively fighting a war on terror.

It's a great mirror image of the "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" talking point we've heard for so long. Incidentally, we were attacked on out soil maybe 1 time (unsuccessfully) in the sixty years between Pearl Harbor and 9/11. I don't remember other Presidents taking credit for that part of their job.

[clip of Karl Rove]

Kerry: OBL is going to die of kidney failure before he's killed by Karl Rove and his crowd. All he does is divide America over this issue and exploit it. What he's trying to pretend is that Dems don't want to eavesdrop appropriately to protect the country. That's a lie. We're prepared to eavesdrop, but we can do it without ignoring the Constitution.

Come to the Congress and tell us why you can't do what you need to do under the FISA law. 19,000 warrents issued, only 5 denied. Court is set up to respond in a matter of minutes.

This is typical of the way they've been managing this city. A culture of arrogance and corruption that's been allowed to take over Wash DC, evidenced also by the Abramoff scandel. Billy Tauzin puts together the prescription drug law, gets a million dollars (and then becomes the head lobbyist for Big Pharma -ed) . There are billions of dollars missing in Iraq. They're not even looking for them.

They don't want to catch Osama bin Laden. They want to use him, politically.

Steph: Al Gore says it may be an impeachable offense and is calling for a special counsel to investigate. Do you agree?

Kerry: I agree we ought to have a special counsel investigate, because this Congress has proven itself unwilling to do what's necessary. And the greatest example of that is intelligence comm in Senate which has been stonewalling effort to look at intelligence leading up to the war. Need to go further on anti-corruption efforts...

Steph: Are you worried that they are right on the politics and this issue really is going to work for Reps?

Kerry. No. Not in the least and I welcome the debate. I want to have that debate every single day. We will show America. A lot has happened in the last year and a half. Katrina stripped away the air of competance of this administration. The curtain got pulled aside and there isn't even a wizard behind it. And they found that these people are incompetant. In addition, what they've seen in Iraq. Our troops still don't have the armor they should have. I can't tell you how angry... how disgraceful that is.

I'm going to have a longer post on this, but I'm very chastened to find that John Kerry has figured this out. Conservatism is dead. It has been laid bare for all to see. Not only with Katrina, but this prescription drug debacle. It doesn't work. It's not responsive to the needs of its people. It's not a workable system of government.

Now if only the rest of the Democrats would understand this and stop apologizing for their beliefs.

Steph: Republicans say Dems are implicated in Abramoff as well. [Kerry laughs] How do you respond?

Kerry: I would say that's another one of their swiftboat tactics where they try to throw up mud and stick it, and I'm gonna stick it right back at them. I've never met Jack Abramoff. I've never had a dime come to me from Jack Abramoff. And I'm not going to stand suggesting that because somewhere somewhere in the country gave my campaign money that we somehow are implicated. This is a Republican scandal. They run the House. They run the Senate. They have the WH. They're controlling who goes on the judiciary. They have not done the things necessary to press forward on this. The fact is that they encouraged with their K Street project, going out there, asking that people get fired because they're Dems, because they aren't on the team. The purchase of access...

Steph: That's not the president.

Kerry: The president sets the tone. Let me tell you something. This president hasn't vetoed one piece of legislation for 5 years. Should tell congress, if there's junk in this bill, I'm going to veto it until you take it out. It's been an absence of leadership. You call the leadership down and tell them I'm not going to stand for this. The business of our nation is not getting done. GM is laying of thousands of workers. People don't have health care. People are losing health care. Wages are going down. America's behind in science and technology. Pakistan and India are racing forward, investing in infrastructure. The US is taking it for granted, with leadership that is more concerned, as evidenced by Karl Rove, by how you divide America rather than lead America.

It's really shocking to see a presentation from this guy THAT forceful, THAT direct, and THAT on the money.

Kerry went on to say that he would vote against Alito, and left open the possibility for a 2008 run at the Presidency. I don't care about any of that. I'm just happy to see this week bookended by two speakers - Al Gore and John Kerry - who have learned from the past. Marc Cooper said this week that the best politicians are defeated politicians. All I know is that the Democratic party needs its leaders to speak honestly, directly, and passionately to the American people. We've had two great examples of that this week.

Now if we can stop Harry Reid from apologizing, we'd get somewhere.