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What a difference four years makes. I remember as a reporter watching John Kerry accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Boston in 2004. It was an attempt to use his Vietnam War service to inoculate his candidacy against cries from the GOP that Democrats were soft on security issues.
This time around, the Democrats are doing something different, writes Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman.
Ackerman writes:
When last the Democrats decided to make national security a theme at their convention, biography was everything. John Kerry, the party’s 2004 nominee, was a bona fide war hero, and the campaign made sure everyone knew it. Starting with Kerry’s arrival at the Fleet Center from across Boston’s Charles River, to recall his Vietnam service aboard a Swift Boat; to the parade of retired generals and admirals declaring their support; to Kerry’s famous opening line declaring “reporting for duty,” the Democrats gambled that Kerry’s heroic service would invest him with the national-security bona fides to elect him president.
Beneath the pageantry, however, was a bluff. Kerry’s actual national-security message didn’t draw sharp distinctions with President George W. Bush’s policies.
Ackerman continues:
When the Democrats talk tonight about national security, 2004 will appear like a long-forgotten, sepia-toned era. The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) represents a quantum leap in terms of both style and substance. Rather than arguing that they can more competently execute Bush administration policies, as they did in 2004, the 2008-vintage Democratic Party, led by Obama, is presenting a more thoroughgoing critique. It begins with a clear timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. But it does not stop there.
