Justus For All

Hillary introduced her husband (transcipt here. Nothing to exciting in her speech, although I did notice it ran long for an introduction. She spoke for close to ten minutes (the schedule I saw budgeted her for 5.) It did seem a little like groundwork for a possible presidential run, but she certainly gave plenty of Kudos to John Kerry.

Bill Clinton reminded me why he was elected President twice. Say what you will about him, the man can give a great speech (transcript here. I am glad John Kerry, not Bill Clinton is running for office this election.

Just because I can appreciate his speech does not mean I agree with it of course. Here is one part that I particularly noticed wasn’t entirely accurate. In refering to the time immediatly after 9/11 he said:

The president had an amazing opportunity to bring the country together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in the struggle against terror.

Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice. They chose to use that moment of unity to try to push the country too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors had finished their work, but in withdrawing American support for the climate change treaty and for the international court on war criminals and for the anti-ballistic missile treaty and from the nuclear test ban treaty.

Whatever you might think about the decision to invade Iraq (which was well after the unity of the country following 9/11 had vanished), President Bush unsigned the Kyoto treaty in March of 2001. The ICC and the nuclear test ban treaty (along with Kyoto) never had support in the senate and were never ratified.

Clinton’s most stirring moment was this section of the speech:

During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current president, the vice president and me, could have gone to Vietnam and didn’t. John Kerry came from a privileged background. He could have avoided going too, but instead, he said: Send me.

When they sent those swiftboats up the river in Vietnam and they told them their job was to draw hostile fire, to wave the American flag and bate the enemy to come out and fight, John Kerry said: Send me.

And then, on my watch, when it was time to heal the wounds of war and normalize relations with Vietnam and to demand an accounting of the POWs and MIAs we lost there, John Kerry said: Send me.

Then when we needed someone to push the cause of inner-city children struggling to avoid a life of crime or to bring the benefits of high technology to ordinary Americans or to clean the environment in a way that created new jobs, or to give small businesses a better chance to make it, John Kerry said: Send me.

CLINTON: So tonight, my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry’s story and promoting his ideas. Let every person in this hall and like-minded people all across our land say to him what he has always said to America: Send me.

Stirring stuff, and well delivered.

Of course he didn’t mention that when the anti-Vietnam war movement asked for someone to go on national television and accuse our soldiers of committing atrocities, John Kerry said: Send me.