Kennedy Launches Attack on Bush on Convention's 2nd Day
By DAVID STOUT
Published: July 27, 2004
BOSTON, July 27 - Senator Edward M. Kennedy welcomed Democrats to his
beloved Boston this evening with a fiery attack on President Bush, who he
said had broken America's covenant with the world and Washington's compact
with the people of the United States.
Mr. Kennedy, delivering what some have forecast as a near farewell after
more than four decades in the Senate, told delegates that Mr. Bush had too
much in common with the King George of old, against whom the spirit of
revolution was born in the very streets of this city, and that for the sake
of the country he must be turned out in November.
"The colonists knew they could do better, just as we know we can do better
today - but only if we all work together, only if we all reach out together,
only if we all come together for the common good," the senator said, leading
a call joined by several other prominent Democrats to send Senator John
Kerry to the White House and send George W. Bush back home.
"Now it is for us, the patriots of this new century, to do that, to shape
our own better future and make it worthy of our past, to choose a leader
worthy of our country - and that leader is John Kerry," Mr. Kennedy said.
Before the evening was out, Mr. Kerry was also extolled by Senator Tom
Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader, and by two men who not
so long ago dreamed of being in Mr. Kerry's place as their party's next
presidential nominee: Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri and former
Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont.
About 90 members of the Kennedy family were in the FleetCenter to watch Mr.
Kennedy, once the youngest brother of the fabled political clan but now the
white-haired patriarch, address a Democratic convention for the eighth time.
And while there has been conjecture that his next Senate campaign, in 2006,
may be his last, he joked at the outset that "I intend to stay in this job
until I get the hang of it."
"The goals of the American people are every bit as high as they were more
than 200 years ago," Mr. Kennedy said. "If America is failing to reach them
today, it's not because our ideals need replacing, it's because our
president needs replacing."
Mr. Kennedy's address followed by a few hours the adoption of the Democratic
platform in which the delegates, by a voice vote, pledged uncompromising war
against terrorists, better relations with other nations and more
opportunities at home, and accused President Bush of failing woefully in all
those areas.
Mr. Kennedy's speech was the sharpest attack on President Bush so far at the
convention, and it continued a trend in which the Democrats, after promising
a convention that would be uplifting - and avoid blatant Bush bashing -
apparently decided either individually or collectively that the best lift
for the Kerry campaign would be a frontal attack on the current White House.
Mr. Gephardt, Mr. Daschle and Mr. Dean joined in the attack on Mr. Bush when
their turns came.
"We need John Kerry as president because we need a uniter, not a divider,"
Mr. Gephardt said.
Mr. Daschle said the country needed a president who would show Americans how
to live by their values, not just talk about them. "We honor the fundamental
difference between right and wrong," he said.
And Mr. Dean said Senator Kerry was the man to "take this country back for
the citizens who built it." Mr. Dean did allow, with a chuckle, that he
would rather be speaking to the convention on Thursday as the nominee -
rather than tonight, as an also-ran.
The appearance of Mr. Kennedy, who is 72, may have marked, if not the end of
an era, then the beginning of the end. Other, younger Democrats were
speaking later this evening. The keynote speaker is Barack Obama, a young
Illinois lawmaker who seems this fall to have an excellent chance of
becoming only the third black United States senator since Reconstruction.
But Mr. Kennedy relished his own minutes in the spotlight, especially since
he shared them with Boston. "I've waited a very, very long time to say
this - welcome to my hometown!" the senator said.
Mr. Kennedy verbally embraced not just the Boston of Paul Revere and John
Adams but the Boston of Irish immigrants, including all eight of his
great-grandparents. "Here in New England, we love our history, and like all
Americans we learn from it," he said.
"I've served for many years in the Senate and have seen many elections," Mr.
Kennedy said moments later. "But there have been none more urgent or more
important than this one. Never before have I seen a contrast so sharp or
consequences so profound as in the choice we will make for president in
2004. So much of the progress we have achieved has been turned back. So much
of the good will America once enjoyed in the world has been lost. But we are
a hopeful nation, and our values and our optimism are still burning bright."
Mr. Kennedy accused Mr. Bush of squandering the good will of the world after
the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, by embarking on a reckless, go-it-alone
approach against Iraq that he said made a mockery of the first sentence of
the Declaration of Independence, which calls for `a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind."
Other Democrats have assailed Mr. Bush's policies, but Mr. Kennedy
questioned Mr. Bush's political motives as well. "America is a compact, a
contract," he said. "It says that all of us are connected."
Yet, he said, "in our own time, there are those who seek to divide us. One
community against another. Urban against rural. City against suburb. Whites
against blacks. Men against women. Straights against gays. Americans against
Americans. In these challenging times for our country, in these fateful
times for the world, America needs a genuine leader - not a divider who only
claims to be a uniter.
"We have seen how they rule - they divide and try to conquer. They know the
power of the people is weakened when our house is divided. They believe they
can't win, unless the rest of us lose. We reject that shameful view."
Some of President Bush's top aides and speechwriters were no doubt watching
Mr. Kennedy tonight, and perhaps sharpening their pencils in preparation for
sketching him as a liberal. Indeed, Mr. Kennedy was that tonight, recalling
Democratic times from the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt, through the brief
administration of President John F. Kennedy and beyond - and lamenting the
current Republican tide, which he said stood for elitism, intolerance for
dissent and "the quiet whisper of the sweetheart deal."
Now, Mr. Kennedy said, the internal struggle is against just those things.
"These are familiar fights," he said. "We've fought and won them before. And
with John Kerry and John Edwards leading us, we will win them again and make
America stronger at home and respected once more in the world."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/27/politics/campaign/28CAMP.html
--
A pattern of deception
A hard truth appears to have escaped the notice of the public and received
scant attention from the media: Bush is the first president in American
history to use deceptive propaganda as his main means of communications in
selling his policies. His pattern of deception continues unabated and in
direct conflict with the notion of the public's informed consent that is
central to American democracy.
Walter Williams is professor emeritus at the University of Washington's
Evans School of Public Affairs.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/6378746.htm
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