Democrats attack Bush
2004-07-28 08:20
Boston - Democrats mixed new attacks on President George W. Bush at their national convention on Tuesday with a first effort to sell their own presidential candidate John Kerry to a still-dubious US electorate.
The second day of the four-day gathering in Boston was programmed as a focused attempt to tell the story of a four-term senator who remains largely unknown to many Americans.
Speaker after speaker praised Kerry's leadership capacity and vision but the Democrats could not resist the opportunity to take additional swipes at the Republican president and settle other scores.
Even would-be first lady Teresa Heinz Kerry, the last speaker to take the podium on her husband's behalf, spent much of her time hitting back at critics after her run-in with a reporter she told to "shove it."
"My right to speak my mind, to have a voice - to be what some have called opinionated - is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish," she said, drawing roars of approval from the crowd.
"My only hope is that, one day soon, women - who have all earned the right to their opinions - instead of being labelled opinionated, will be called smart or well-informed, just as men are," she said.
Senator Edward Kennedy, in what may be his last hurrah on a national stage, exhorted Democrats to put his protege Kerry in the White House and return the United States to the world community.
"Our struggle is with the politics of fear and favouritism in our own time, in our own country," the party patriarch said. "Our struggle is with those who put their own narrow interest ahead of the public interest."
The rest of the world
As former president Bill Clinton and other Democratic heavyweights did here before him, Kennedy drew a sharp contrast between his party and a Bush administration he said had burned its bridges with the rest of the world.
"Interdependence defines our world. For all our might, for all our wealth, we know we are only as strong as the bonds we share with others," he told the crowd in the Fleet Center sports arena.
Howard Dean, who goaded timorous Democrats into opposing Bush's anti-terror policies and invasion of Iraq until his own presidential hopes crashed, was given wild cheers by the crowd.
"We're not going to be afraid to stand up for what we believe. We're not going to let those who disagree with us shout us down under a banner of false patriotism," the former Vermont governor told the 5 000 delegates and thousands more guests.
The Democrats also pulled off something of a political coup as the youngest son of the late president and Republican icon Ronald Reagan took centre stage to lock horns with Bush over the president's insistence on limiting stem-cell research.
On Wednesday, the convention will formally nominate and hear from Kerry's vice-presidential running-mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and Kerry will cap the gala with his acceptance speech on Thursday.