Posted on 08/03/2004 6:29:27 AM PDT by presidio9
The morning after his address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, former President Clinton volunteered to this scripturally challenged reporter that his speech's most provocative line had been inspired by the Book of Isaiah.
What Clinton spoke was truly unarguable: "During the Vietnam War, any young men -- including the current president, the vice president and me -- could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it, too. Instead he said, 'Send me.' "
Each evening and speaker was dedicated to delivering slight variations on the convention's central theme: Biography is destiny; Democrats who have long lionized anti-war protesters now un-self-consciously salute and honor the combat veteran who served bravely in that most protested of wars. As the hero who later protested that war, John Kerry is the ideal bridge in resolving all conflict between those two Democrats' eras.
The discipline of the Boston delegates in submerging their own personal agendas for victory in November was truly impressive. Not once all week did I hear the presiding officer -- so that a speaker could be heard in the hall -- have to gavel the convention hall to order.
Not once were the marshals called upon to clear the aisles. As pollster Peter D. Hart who began attending Democratic conventions in the '60s astutely asked: "When was the last time that at a Democratic convention you saw on stage more American generals and admirals than labor union presidents?" Answer: Maybe during Andrew Jackson's convention, probably never. Hart added, "In Boston, Democrats (by featuring Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore and Bill Clinton) did not, as they have, run away from their past."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I disagree completely. It could be very easy to "top the Democratic Convention".
All the GOP has to do is tell the truth. It doesn't get much simpler than that, folks.
Oh, and btw.....
The President of the United States will be attending.
We're running from our past? I thought Kerry was doing that by 1) trumpeting his Vietnam War activities, but NOT his ANTI war activities and 2) BARELY mentioning his lackluster Senate career
So true. How can they match the Teresa (Call me Mama T) speech, the heartwarming hamster story, and most of all, the salute. It's like trying to follow Bob Hope in his prime.
Snip from Echoes of Vietnam in presidential campaign 35 years later :
Udell says Bush asked about a program under which National Guard pilots were assigned to Vietnam, but Udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certified on the F-102, which the military was phasing out. (**SO... Bush was willing.**)(Read that and weep you liberal scum media that WON'T cover it!)
Funny X42 wasn't "inspired" by the line above the one that "inspired" his speech... Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
All the republican convention has to do is have President Bush stay even in the polls or get a one point bump and it will have exceeded the democrat convention. Mr. Shields doesn't seem to realize that very few bothered to watch the democrat love-fest convention, and those that did were turned off. The Kerry campaign should be thanking what ever diety they pray too that the audience was so small, or he might be down 15 points or more by now.
GOP picked a great time to have a convention.
"The way I read John Kerrys record, he didnt say SEND ME till all his deferrments ran out.
I agree. The unreported side of Kerry's "heroism."
I would be willing to bet that he cried "Send me home!!" a helluva lot louder than he said "send me."
And if he was such a "hero," why did he bug out after only four months? With those "injuries" most would have not even considered the technicality Kerry used to abandon his "brothers in arms."
(I swear, I never had to use the quotations key as much on any pol until Kerry reared his ugly head!)
"The discipline of the Boston delegates in submerging their own personal agendas for victory in November was truly impressive."
Translation: they were hiding their liberalism. Running away from it, in fact.
I can see why they would be ashamed........
Change that to X42, THE IMPEACHED
"'SEND ME!!,'but I have to be back for the Tea Dances on the Cape, then there's the yatch races, and also, I got to go through the financial reports on all the young heiresses and try out the top 10 or so, so let's make that 14, 15 weeks. And, would you have the butler get someone to sign this stack of blank Purple Heart forms for me?"
Whistle? Nah, he'll have to work harder to copy the names off the weather-worn tombstones to come up with the necessary Dim voters.
'I'll turn it into the longest photo-op in history.'
On the - and through the - Mark.
Yep. Arnold is a real dullard.
/sarcasm
You serious?
Arnold is an actor. Nothing more.
We've had the cable turned off for a while, so I have to put up with listening to Shields. What a complete idiot! He isn't capable of any type of meaningful insight - every reply is just standard the democrat talking point, or worse, his feable attempt to create one. Almost forces me to watch that idiot Eleanor Twit on the McLaughlin Group, but that's an entirely different subject.
RIIIIiiiiight, all we have got to do is make sure our balloons drop on time and we don't LIE to the American people about who we really are. So hard... NOT
The answer to this is simple.
During the Vietnam War any soldier could have returned from Vietnam and in the interest of duty and the safety of his fellow soldiers avoided publicly ridiculing the war and the honorable men who fought it. John Kerry was interested in politically exploiting his status. Instead he said "Screw You".
Uh huh. Well who would YOU pick?
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