If you love politics, the national conventions during presidential years are like the Super Bowl.
In summer 2004, I traveled to Boston for the Democratic National Convention, along with Rudy Giuliani and a few of our team. Rudy was making a ton of television appearances, so I was there to do some writing and facilitating and basically have fun at convention time.
I remember seeing Dimitry and his young family for breakfast—he was at Harvard for the year. And after seeing John Kerry’s famous “Reporting for duty” keynote speech, I tore into him for Newsday.
Man, this one had some real bite to it.
It’s hard to read this one because of the formatting, but here’s a representative sample:
“Kerry has intelligence but not wisdom. Opinions but not convictions. Rhythm but not soul. John Kerry is this convention’s Rip Van Winkle. He would like us to believe that he went to sleep 30 years ago as the strapping captain of a Swift boat and awakened today, ready to continue leading. Erased are 20 of the least productive years in Senate history and a trail of contradictory, muddled statements.”
Tough language for a tough election. This is my favorite of the dozen or so Newsday columns I wrote in 2004.
