Welcome back, it sounds like a great long weekend.
BOSTON, July 12 -- Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) appealed to some of his party's core constituencies in his hometown Monday, chiding President Bush at a breakfast for black and Hispanic voters for skipping a gathering of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Philadelphia this week and telling several hundred women at a fundraising luncheon that he shares the values that are central to their lives.
In Roxbury, a Boston neighborhood with a large minority population, Kerry, told some 40 local politicians and activists that he "will be a president who meets . . . with the NAACP." ....
Kerry also cited "the value of how you take the nation to war." The Democrat, who voted for a 2002 congressional resolution that authorized the invasion of Iraq and opposed a bill last October that allocated $87 billion towards U.S. efforts in that country, said that he was "proud" of voting against the funding because "the policy had to be changed."
"We needed other countries involved," said Kerry, who also accused the administration from inadequately equipping U.S. troops before the war with gear like body armor. [Um, Effin, maybe you should have voted for the $87 million, then] "We needed to reach out to our allies. We needed to put other boots on the ground," he said. [And Tony Blair asks, 'what are we, chopped liver?'] ... Wash ComPost