{"id":2709,"date":"2004-07-29T19:01:43","date_gmt":"2004-07-30T09:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/07\/30\/kerrys-dnc-speech\/"},"modified":"2019-12-10T16:59:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T00:59:15","slug":"kerrys-dnc-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/07\/29\/kerrys-dnc-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry&#8217;s DNC speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:10098,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.c-span.org&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260308192607\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.c-span.org\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 01:04:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 21:23:18&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 21:23:18&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10493,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.cnn.com\\\/2004\\\/ALLPOLITICS\\\/07\\\/29\\\/dems.kerry.transcript\\\/index.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260311070138\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.cnn.com\\\/2004\\\/ALLPOLITICS\\\/07\\\/29\\\/dems.kerry.transcript\\\/index.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.cnn.com\\\/2004\\\/ALLPOLITICS\\\/07\\\/29\\\/dems.kerry.transcript\\\/index.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 21:23:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 21:23:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10494,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.dems2004.org&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.c-span.org\/\" title=\"C-SPAN\">C-Span<\/a>&#8216;s video archive, I just sat back and watched <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2004\/ALLPOLITICS\/07\/29\/dems.kerry.transcript\/index.html\" title=\"We are here to make America stronger\">Kerry&#8217;s speech<\/a> to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dems2004.org\/\" title=\"2004 Democratic National Convention\">2004 Democratic National Convention<\/a>. I must say, I&#8217;m more impressed than I thought I was going to be, not having been overly impressed by what little I&#8217;ve seen of Kerry in the past. A good, well-written speech, and he delivered it quite well.<\/p>\n<p>A few choice quotes that especially impressed me:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  We&#8217;re told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. We&#8217;re told that new jobs that pay \\$9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy we&#8217;ve ever had. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: <em>There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can&#8217;t do better<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>  I am proud that after September 11th all our people rallied to President Bush&#8217;s call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats. There were no Republicans. There were only Americans. How we wish it had stayed that way.<\/p>\n<p>  As president, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system, so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as president, I will bring back this nation&#8217;s time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, <em>we only go to war because we have to<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>  As president, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: &#8220;I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm&#8217;s way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was real and imminent.&#8221; So lesson one, this is the only justification for going to war.<\/p>\n<p>  For four years, we&#8217;ve heard a lot of talk about values. But values spoken without actions taken are just slogans. Values are not just words. They&#8217;re what we live by. They&#8217;re about the causes we champion and the people we fight for. And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.<\/p>\n<p>  I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let&#8217;s be optimists, not just opponents. Let&#8217;s build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let&#8217;s honor this nation&#8217;s diversity; let&#8217;s respect one another; and let&#8217;s never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>  I don&#8217;t want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God&#8217;s side.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Now, let&#8217;s get this man into office.<\/p>\n<p><strong>iTunes:<\/strong> &#8220;More&#8221; by Crystal Method, The from the album <em>Plastic Compilation Vol. I<\/em> (1997, 5:59).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to C-Span&#8217;s video archive, I just sat back and watched Kerry&#8217;s speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I must say, I&#8217;m more impressed than I thought I was going to be, not having been overly impressed by what little I&#8217;ve seen of Kerry in the past. A good, well-written speech, and he delivered it quite well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-2709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}