[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Invoking His Past, Kerry Vows to Command ' a Nation at War'

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Invoking His Past, Kerry Vows to  Command 'a Nation at War'

July 30, 2004
 By ADAM NAGOURNEY 



 

BOSTON, July 29 - John Forbes Kerry accepted the Democratic
presidential nomination on Thursday night, pledging to
"restore trust and credibility to the White House" as he
accused President Bush of misleading the nation into war
and pursuing policies that he described as a threat to the
economy, the Constitution and the nation's standing in the
world. 

Mr. Kerry, speaking in a convention hall that was packed
shoulder-to-shoulder with delegates and other Democrats two
and a half hours before he strode in, promised to take
charge of "a nation at war.'' He invoked his service in
Vietnam 35 years ago as he vowed to protect Americans from
terrorism in the 21st century. 

"I defended this country as a young man and I will defend
it as president," Mr. Kerry said. "Let there be no mistake:
I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any
attack will be met with a swift and a certain response." 

But more than reinforcing his own credentials as a wartime
president, Mr. Kerry used this speech on Thursday - to what
was certainly the largest audience the four-term senator
from Massachusetts has ever faced - to offer a blistering
critique of Mr. Bush's 42 months in office, going so far as
to echo one of the signature attacks Mr. Bush used against
Bill Clinton when he ran in 2000 by challenging Mr. Bush's
honesty. 

"We have it in our power to change the world, but only if
we're true to our ideals - and that starts by telling the
truth to the American people," Mr. Kerry said, speaking
rapidly over repeated cheers from his audience. "As
president, that is my first pledge to you tonight. As
president, I will restore trust and credibility to the
White House. 

"I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us
into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct
secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental
laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to
the advice of the military leaders. And I will appoint an
attorney general who upholds the Constitution of the United
States." 

For anyone watching the proceedings on this last night of
the 44th Democratic convention, there could be little doubt
about the urgent and complicated tasks Mr. Kerry faced as
he walked into the FleetCenter: to convince the nation's
voters that he could match Mr. Bush's credentials as a
wartime president, that he was tough enough to use force
when needed and that they should turn out a president in
the middle of the war. In fact, the entire speech was built
around the idea that Mr. Kerry is a more trustworthy
custodian of American security than the president he wants
to replace. 

In striking contrast to Democratic acceptance speeches
going back a generation, Mr. Kerry's was from start to
finish heavily weighted toward foreign affairs and national
security, underlining the urgency Mr. Kerry sees in trying
to compete with Mr. Bush on that terrain as the men fight a
political campaign against the backdrop of a war in Iraq
and the threat of another terrorist attack. 

Mr. Kerry saluted his audience when he walked in, and took
in a hall fluttering with Kerry placards affixed with
American flags, as Democrats sought with this convention to
appropriate what is typically Republican imagery. 

And the gauzy introductions leading up to his arrival -
folksy and personal tributes from his two daughters, a
Hollywood biographic video, war stories from one of his
buddies from Vietnam - signaled another goal of his
convention: to provide a softer view of a politician whose
own friends describe him as cool and distant. As Mr. Kerry
came here to accept his party's nomination, he confronted
polls that showed him and Mr. Bush locked in a tie, but
with signs that Americans, while unhappy with Mr. Bush,
were not prepared to turn the White House over to a man
that Mr. Bush has sought to diminish as liberal and
unprincipled. 

The speech brought an end to one of the most peaceful and
united Democratic conventions in 50 years and ushered in
what will be an extraordinarily busy month of politicking
before the Republican National Convention in New York. Mr.
Kerry heads out of Boston on Friday for a two-week
cross-country bus trip. 

Mr. Bush, not wasting a moment, is heading out on his own
trip to the Midwest on Friday; aides said he would use the
trip to unveil proposals to help the nation adjust to the
economic strains of this new century. 

Mr. Kerry strode into the convention hall just past 10
p.m., to the Bruce Springsteen song "No Surrender," coming
not from backstage but across the teeming convention hall
itself, slapping hands with delegates before bounding up
onstage on steps that had been built overnight.. 

"I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty!" Mr. Kerry said
with a crisp salute. 

He spoke for 45 minutes, at an unusually quick pace, often
talking over the applause. By the end, he was perspiring,
but the senator - not known as one of his party's most
accomplished speakers - seemed relaxed and invigorated by
the often ecstatic reaction of delegates. 

Mr. Bush's campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, issued a
statement saying that Mr. Kerry had failed to offer ''an
explanation of his inconsistencies and contradictions on
the central front in the war on terror. 

"John Kerry missed an opportunity to help the American
people understand his vote for the war in Iraq based on the
same intelligence that the president viewed,'' he said. Mr.
Kerry, who said on the eve of the convention that he did
not want the weeklong gathering to dissolve into a forum of
attacks on Mr. Bush, barely mentioned Mr. Bush by name. 

Yet with every sentence, he sought to set out differences
between the men on critical issues, and pre-empt attacks on
him by the White House, and he tried to use the opportunity
provided by having the first convention to set the
framework for the campaign. In the process, Mr. Kerry
borrowed the words of Vice President Dick Cheney; Ron
Reagan, son of the late president; and even Mr. Bush
himself. 

"I want to address these next words directly to President
George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not
just opponents," Mr. Kerry said. 

"Let's build unity in the American family, not angry
division.'' 

He added: "The high road may be harder, but it leads to a
better place. And that's why Republicans and Democrats must
make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded
attacks.'' 

Mr. Kerry borrowed from Mr. Reagan's eulogy at his father's
funeral in confronting what he suggested was Mr. Bush's
attempt to draw differences between the senator and the
president on values and religion. 

"In this campaign, we welcome people of faith: America is
not us and them," he said. "I think of what Ron Reagan said
of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to
you tonight: I don't wear my religion on my sleeve. 

"But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from
Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday,'' he said. "I
don't want to claim that God is on our side.'' 

He even invoked one of Mr. Cheney's favorite lines from the
2000 campaign in drawing a contrast with Mr. Bush. "America
can do better: So tonight we say, help is on the way," he
said. 

Mr. Kerry surrounded himself on stage with symbols of
military might and reminders of his own service in war.
There was grainy videotape showing him, gun in hand, on the
fields of Vietnam. The nation met 14 crewmates - members of
his "band of brothers" - who accompanied him as he
commanded Swift boats down the bullet-ridden Mekong Delta,
and they heard Mr. Kerry argue that he could fight
terrorism better than Mr. Bush. 

Gen. Wesley K. Clark implored his audience to embrace Mr.
Kerry. "America," he said, "hear this soldier.'' 

And Mr. Kerry said that he could do a better job fighting
terrorism than Mr. Bush. "We need a strong military and we
need to lead strong alliances,'' Mr. Kerry said, when it
came time for him to speak. "And then, with confidence and
determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: 'You
will lose and we will win.' The future doesn't belong to
fear; it belongs to freedom." 

While foreign policy dominated much of Mr. Kerry's address,
it was far from his only theme of the speech, and reflected
the calculation of Mr. Kerry's advisers that he needed to
at least neutralize the issue of terrorism in order to move
the election debate to issues that might play better for
the Democrats. 

Mr. Kerry presented himself as a the candidate of "the
middle class who deserve a champion, and those struggling
to join it.'' Even as he took pains to say he had an
optimistic view of the future - again, responding to Mr.
Bush's effort to portray him as dour and pessimistic - he
spoke of a nation that was suffering because of Mr. Bush's
policies. 

"We are a nation at war - a global war on terror against an
enemy unlike any we have ever known before,'' he said. "And
here at home, wages are falling, health care costs are
rising, and our great middle class is shrinking. People are
working weekends; they're working two jobs, three jobs, and
they're still not getting ahead." 

"We can do better and we will,'' he said. "We're the
optimists.'' 

Again and again, Mr. Kerry used his speech to try to push
back on lines of attack that the White House had launched
against him, such as its portrayal of him as inconsistent. 

"Now I know there are those who criticize me for seeing
complexities - and I do - because some issues just aren't
all that simple,'' he said. "Saying there are weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can
fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. 

"And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't
make it so." 

Picking up on what had been a line of attack General Clark
had used when the two were competing for the nomination,
Mr. Kerry challenged the White House for trying to portray
criticism of the war as unpatriotic. 

''Tonight, we have an important message for those who
question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better
direction for our country,'' he said. "Before wrapping
themselves in the flag and shutting their eyes and ears to
the truth, they should remember what America is really all
about.'' "You see that flag up there?" he continued,
adding, "I fought under that flag, as did so many of you
here and all across our country. That flag flew from the
gun turret right behind my head.." 

"That flag doesn't belong to any president," he said. "It
doesn't belong to any ideology and it doesn't belong to any
political party. It belongs to all the American people. " 

Mr. Kerry's performance drew , not surprisingly, positive
reviews from an audience that was looking for him to have a
good night. 

"I think John F. Kerry is giving the best speech he has
ever given -- a true reflection of his patriotism and his
life,'' said Jay C. Stoddard, 74, a delegate from Nebraska.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/politics/campaign/30campaign.final.html?ex=1092208423&ei=1&en=19ce4669b188117c


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