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Wednesday morning, August 27, between 11 am and 1:30 pm EST or 9 am and 11:30 am mountain time, I'll be chairing a New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force event in Denver at the Colorado History Museum. The keynotes are Senator JOHN KERRY (D-MA), Obama National Security Adviser GREG CRAIG, Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, former Congressman and Obama Adviser MEL LEVINE, former German Foreign Minister JOSCHKA FISCHER, and Aspen Institute President (and former CNN Chairman and CEO and TIME Managing Editor) Walter Isaacson. Our panel will be former Israeli negotiator and New America Foundation Senior Fellow...

The Observer finds that Teresa Heinz Kerry appears to believe that the results in Ohio in 2004 are illegitimate: This convention, Ms. Heinz Kerry said, is “full of meaning and full of opportunity, and if you, as I, believe, and I know a lot of you do, we did not lose the last election, nor did Al Gore lose his last election. We won it.” While many Democrats remain angry about conflicts over voter registration and the provision of voting machines, in particular, fewer believe that those provided the margin of victory, or that Kerry was robbed of victory the...

Our sister-publication The New Republic and its staff are blanketing the Democratic convention, and from their coverage we wanted to return to an underappreciated star of the convention. It was, no kidding, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry. Here's TNR's Chris Orr on one speech you may not have watched: Like most, if I'd been told yesterday that John Kerry would give a sharper speech than Bill Clinton, I would have assumed it was because Clinton tanked. The latter didn't (remotely) happen, but the former did, with Kerry giving by far the best speech I've ever seen from him.

The race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry is as close as it has ever been, even after the Democratic National Convention last week, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Sunday. Kerry is far out in front of Bush on the question of who would unite the country. Fifty-two percent of all those interviewed said Kerry would, while only 39 percent said Bush would.

U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) stands at the podium as he attends a walk-through before the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado August 27, 2008.

In the latest volley in the ping-pong match over 1960s radical William Ayers, the Republican National Committee has dug up a snippet of him praising Senator John F. Kerry for throwing away his Vietnam War decorations. "John Kerry's finest moment," Ayers, a founder of the Weathermen, says in the video from C-SPAN of a January 2006 appearance at the National Press Club while promoting a book. In a 1971 antiwar protest, Kerry discarded the ribbons from medals for valor he was awarded for his service on swift boats. Republicans and groups allied with them attacked Kerry's service and record during...

DENVER -- From the convention hall: All evidence points to a Democratic convention that will have a take-no-prisoners aggressive approach all week, driving home the contrast between John McCain and Barack Obama at every opportunity possible. An official speaking on background said that they were "not going to make the same mistake that we did in '04." Democratic analyst Mark Siegel said, "We begged the Kerry people to make the election a plebiscite on Bush, and make the '04 convention, from beginning to end the Reagan '80 series of questions: Are we better off now than we were four years...

Pope Benedict XVI has bestowed a key position on an American prelate who was the leader of a faction in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that believes Catholic voters should judge political candidates primarily by their views on abortion. With a presidential election looming, supporters of the separation of church and state can hope that the appointment of Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis as the head of the Vatican's supreme judicial body will defuse the controversy in the church about single-issue voting. Burke, an icon of conservative Catholics, is best known as the prelate who announced in 2004...

It is now widely accepted that the surge in American troops helped dramatically improve security in Iraq in the last year. But there has been less notice of, or comment on, how the surge has improved the Iraqi oil sector, which contributes more than two-thirds of the country's gross national product and almost 95 percent of the government's revenue, and remains pivotal to the country's development and stabilization. Oil production has risen about 25 percent in Iraq in the past year. It had been flat from 2005 through mid-2007, hovering around 2 million barrels per day before beginning to climb...

One of the presidential nominating season's most unusual ideas was proposed again Tuesday, this time by one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress, when Sen. Joseph Biden advocated a "unity" ticket of Democratic Sen. John Kerry and Republican Sen. John McCain.

The media’s ability to shape opinion derives from its power to slant the news―the pervasive activism known as “media bias”―and also from its power to choose what is and is not reported. But 2004 marked a watershed in American political history. That was the year the old media lost control of our national conversation.

WORCESTER, MA - The week before the 2004 Democratic National Convention, John Kerry drafted his presidential nomination speech and then set off on a cross-country trip that brought him home to thousands of delegates waiting in Boston. Four years later, the senator was back on the stump in the second-largest city in Massachusetts, seeking the votes of 60 people who had been lured to a restaurant with a free lunch and Greek pastries. Times have changed, but Kerry insists he’s as committed to seeking re-election to the Senate this fall as he was to campaigning for the White House four...

Jimmy Carter, John Kerry and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley will be among the speakers at next week's Democratic National Convention, organizers announced today. Former Vice President Al Gore also is scheduled to speak at Invesco Field at Mile High on the night Sen. Barack Obama accepts his party's nomination, according to published reports. The convention will gavel open the first three nights — Aug. 25 to 27 — at 3 p.m. Mountain time, the Democratic National Convention Committee announced. It will end each night at 9 p.m. Mountain time. No times have been annnounced for the final night. The schedule...

Via Glenn Reynolds: "In order to Swift Boat John McCain you will need his fellow POWs to come out and say he is bloviating, etc. Swift Boating means someone who was there who knows you are full of hot air is on your tail. Not, I repeat not, what the left wants it to mean. The only way John McCain can be Swift Boated is if someone who was there with him causes McCain's campaign to scramble to answer the allegations. Otherwise, this is desperation by the left who sees their guaranteed win slipping away." It'll get uglier before it's...

Is U.S. Senator John Kerry really feeling that threatened by a first-time, relatively unknown, challenger? First it was an allegedly torrid Senate summer schedule that Kerry said made it impossible for him even to think about debating his Democratic primary opponent, Edward O'Reilly, before the Sept. 16 election. O'Reilly, a Gloucester attorney, had asked Kerry for a series of 23 debates in public forums and television appearances. That's obviously excessive, but wouldn't one or two be a good compromise? Apparently not. Roger Lau, Kerry's campaign manager, said on July 28 that Kerry couldn't even discuss debates until he knew when...

On August 16, 2008, in a CBN News interview with David Brody, Senator Barack Obama said: They're engaging in the kind of politics that I think we've become accustomed to which is you try to tear your opponents down and you engage in sort of slash and burn tactics. And very personal sort of personal character attacks. And one of the challenges for us in this campaign is how do you make sure those attacks are answered quickly and forcefully, but also truthfully and that we don't fall into that same kind of tactic. ... As promised, Mark Levin again...

Mark Levin announced Friday that 'The Obama Nation' author Jerome Corsi will return to his show Monday night. Here is [the audio about] why: One astute observer put it this way: "I suspect the Obama people would like to take a gun to John Kerry's head [for] calling attention to Corsi's book when the Obama campaign was holding its breath, hoping the NY Times story would just quietly go away." So, now that Corsi's book is selling like hotcakes, Barack Obama has set his attack dogs loose: “The reality is that there are many lie-filled books like this in the...

It's only dirty pool if you lose. That's the apparent Democratic approach to presidential politics. In 2004, Democrats tried to use film, in the form of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 , to discredit and bring down President Bush in his re-election effort. CBS even got into the fray, using obviously forged documents to try to tarnish Bush's National Guard service. It led to news anchor Dan Rather's retirement. Yet, four years after a group of veterans from Democratic nominee John Kerry's "swift boat" days in Vietnam hit the news media with their concerns about his war record, it was considered...

Yeah!! Kerry is back. His chance of becoming Obama's VP is now 14%, an 10% jump from yesterday!! Go Kerry!

Reporting Jon Keller BOSTON (WBZ) ― Barack Obama has yet to name a vice presidential nominee and some are wondering if he might turn to Massachusetts to round out the ticket. John Kerry for vice president? Don't dismiss the notion just yet. Some political insiders are telling WBZ it could happen. So why would Obama reach out to Kerry as his choice? Kerry brings more money and name recognition to the table than any other name on the Obama list so far. Americans do tend to love a comeback kid and this would be the most amazing political comeback since...

"Flip" and "Flop"

The closer we get to the Magic Text Message from The One, the more frenzied the Democratic running-mate speculation gets. Today’s humorous suggestion comes from Massachusetts television station WBZ, where Jon Keller thinks that John Kerry might have an inside track. Oh, sorry … Keller’s actually serious: Kerry brings more money and name recognition to the table than any other name on the Obama list so far. Americans do tend to love a comeback kid and this would be the most amazing political comeback since Richard Nixon came back from the dead forty years ago. … Polls show many voters...

Barack Obama has yet to name a vice presidential nominee and some are wondering if he might turn to Massachusetts to round out the ticket. John Kerry for vice president? Don't dismiss the notion just yet. Some political insiders are telling WBZ it could happen. So why would Obama reach out to Kerry as his choice? Kerry brings more money and name recognition to the table than any other name on the Obama list so far. Americans do tend to love a comeback kid and this would be the most amazing political comeback since Richard Nixon came back from the...

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Barack Obama has yet to name a vice presidential nominee and some are wondering if he might turn to Massachusetts to round out the ticket. John Kerry for vice president? Don't dismiss the notion just yet. Some political insiders are telling WBZ it could happen. So why would Obama reach out to Kerry as his choice? Kerry brings more money and name recognition to the table than any other name on the Obama list so far. Americans do tend to love a comeback kid and this would be the most amazing political comeback since Richard Nixon came...

Four years ago this month, the release of a critical book by Jerome R. Corsi undercut the cornerstone of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign narrative, his military service in Vietnam. Now, Corsi has reappeared with another popular book, "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," attacking yet another Democratic nominee, Barack Obama. And Kerry’s former top advisers, who decided to initially pull their punches in 2004, believe this time Democrats must fight back hard — and fight back now. “In hindsight, we made a mistake in not responding more forcefully,” said Steve Elmendorf, Kerry’s 2004 deputy...

Senator John F. Kerry yesterday rejoined the battle with one of his fiercest antagonists from his 2004 presidential bid, launching a website to combat a new book highly critical of Barack Obama, his party's presumptive nominee this year. The initial target is Jerome Corsi, who wrote "Obama Nation" and also was coauthor in 2004 of "Unfit for Command," which attacked Kerry's Vietnam War record in 2004. But Kerry's website - called "Truth Fights Back" - will also seek to counter assaults on other Democrats this election.

Kerry vs. Corsi John Kerry is launching a website, Truth Fights Back, to defend Obama and other Democratic candidates against attacks. The site, paid for by his leadership PAC, goes after the "80 lies" in a new book by Jerome Corsi, whose 2004 attack on Kerry's military record helped sink the Democrat's campaign, but whose Obama book seems likely to remain on the margins this year. Kerry writes in an e-mail going out shortly to his (massive) list: Pick up the New York Times this morning and read the headline: "Book on Obama Hopes to Repeat Anti-Kerry Feat" Yes, Jerome...

The thought of Sen. John Kerry and a president named Barack Obama loose on the streets of Washington, D.C. sounds like an idea for a horror movie. But it would just be a sequel to a disaster movie that the people in Massachusetts have already seen -- one which stars Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick.

Holy Moley....did you know Kerry supports our Veterans??? Get the Tums...

Is Barack Obama America’s first “high concept” candidate? As the McCain campaign has humorously noted, Obama is indeed one of the world’s biggest celebrities—and although his fame isn’t really warranted, his movie-star status could propel him into the Presidency. Obama is little more than slick Hollywood packaging—but slick Hollywood packaging works in this day and age. About thirty years ago, some of the Hollywood executives now backing Obama developed a strategy to increase their profit margins. Studios were losing money on “artistic” films that only seemed to appeal to the screenwriters and directors who worked on these pictures. These executives...

In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the best-seller lists as co-author of “Unfit for Command,” the book attacking Senator John Kerry’s record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry’s war credentials as he sought the presidency. Almost exactly four years after that campaign began, Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presumed presidential nominee, as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up “extensive connections to Islam” — Mr. Obama is Christian —...

Sean Hannity is speculating (on his radio show) that the curious omission of John Kerry from the Democratic Convention speaking schedule is fueling talk that Kerry may be the choice as Obama's running mate. I didn't see a specific thread on this so I thought I would throw it out there.

The rise and fall of John Edwards Political stardom to public apology By Jim Morrill jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com Posted: Sunday, Aug. 10, 2008 When veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum first met John Edwards in 1997, he saw in the accomplished trial lawyer a raw political talent. “I called my partners and said. ‘I think I just met a future president of the United States,'” Shrum recalls. A year later, at 45, Edwards was elected to the U.S. Senate, launching a trajectory that in 2000 put him on the short list of Al Gore's vice presidential candidates. By 2001, he'd begun planning what...

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) ripped into Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) for using video clips of Democrats’ past praise of him in a campaign commercial. The commercial quotes Kerry saying McCain “is a courageous, patriotic American who stands up for what he believes.” “Senator McCain is taking my comments out of context,” Kerry complained. “When I said that, I was praising him for having the courage to turn his back on the right-wingers of his party to help shepherd Democratic-sponsored legislation through the Senate. Otherwise, I have no use for the man.” Kerry characterized the ad and the entire McCain campaign...

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry blasted presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain for using video clips of Democrats’ past praise of McCain in a web-only campaign commercial released Thursday morning. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, called the Arizona senator “unrecognizable” and said he had “changed overnight.” In painting McCain as a maverick, the ad features a series of Democrats — Kerry, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Sen. Russell Feingold and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. — talking up the Republican nominee as a bipartisan deal-maker and all-around good guy. Daschle: “He can work...

The married 64-year-old had his photo taken with Bud Light drinking constituents who, we are told, are college sophomores and juniors. One was drinking from a penis straw. We were told Kerry was partying with them, but his office released this statement: "As Sen. Kerry and two friends left dinner at the Straight Warf restaurant on Nantucket and walked down the dock, a large group on a boat recognized Senator Kerry and asked if they could have a photo taken. The group came off the boat and onto the dock, took a photo with Sen. Kerry and his friends,...

Responding to a recent poll showing presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama's lead over presumptive GOP nominee John McCain in Massachusetts narrowing, Jeff Beatty, the Republican challenging U.S. Sen. John Kerry, predicted victory in both his race and for McCain in Massachusetts. A 7News/Suffolk University poll released Monday showed Obama (Ill.) with a nine-point lead over McCain (Ariz.) - 47 percent to 38 percent. The last 7News/Suffolk University poll, released a month and a half ago, showed Obama leading McCain by 23 points, 53 percent to 30 percent. "People see him for what he is," Beatty told PolitickerMA.com referring to Obama....

Maybe he’s not superstitious, but should Barack Obama really be having dinner with Mike Dukakis and John Kerry - in August? What’s next for Sen. Obama, a day of windsurfing on Nantucket with Liveshot? Or a tank ride in Michigan with the Duke? Granted, Barack raised $4.8 million on Monday night with his 47th birthday party in the State Room at 60 State St. But 33 stories up in the sky, the vibes had to be positively Christmas Carol, with Barack as Ebenezer Scrooge, and the losers of ’88 and ’04 as the ghosts of elections past - and lost.

ohn Kerry attacked the GOP along with the McCain Campaign for the ‘character assassination of Barack Obama.’ Kerry claims he is talking from experience, apparently relating to the Swiftboat allegations , which were never proven untrue. Bad analogy, John.

Maybe French Subtitles Would Help John Kerry appeared on Meet the Press this morning opposite Joe Lieberman. Among the topics discussed was this campaign's latest TV ad, Celeb. The script for the ad reads: ANNCR: He’s the biggest celebrity in the world. But, is he ready to lead? With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says no to offshore drilling. And, says he’ll raise taxes on electricity. Higher taxes, more foreign oil, that’s the real Obama. Can John Kerry go on national television and pontificate about it an ad he didn't watch? Yes he can! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYbFrXyP4r0

During a CNN weekly gathering of Washington-based television pundits in July 2004, Evan Thomas candidly noted in referring to biased reporting that the mainstream media wanted Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, to win. Thomas discussed how the media would portray Kerry and his running-mate, John Edwards, as "young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there's going to be this glow about them that is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them ... maybe 15 points." Thomas was the assistant managing editor for Newsweek magazine, owned by the Washington Post Co., and he was speaking as...

You won’t have Mitt Romney and John Kerry to kick around much longer. At least on the national stage you won’t. They’ll still be knocking around New England, of course. Maybe Mitt can star in a Lake Winnipesaukee remake of that old TV series Sea Hunt. And minimum-wage restaurant employees may well have to endure two more terms of Liveshot asking them the eternal question, “Do you know who I am?” But when it comes to moving up, I think time is running out on the flip-flop twins of Massachusetts politics. Forget the flip, they’re flopping.

An embarrassing gallery of photos showing Bay State Sen. John Kerry surrounded by young women partying on Nantucket was a dockside encounter and nothing more, the senator’s office tells the Herald. The senator’s office said the images of Kerry are nothing but a chance encounter on a dock, and Kerry kept on walking after being caught on camera, according to a statement sent to bostonherald.com this afternoon.

Here is the political question of the morning: When is the term “tar baby” not a racial slur? Answer: When a liberal Democrat uses it. If you’re a Republican and those two words pass your lips, stand by for a barrage, no matter what the context. Just ask Sen. John McCain or ex-Gov. Mitt Romney or late White House spokesman Tony Snow. Over the last couple of years, they’ve all had to issue groveling apologies for mentioning the old Uncle Remus character. But that didn’t stop “outraged community leaders” from tearing into them as arrogant and out-of-touch.

Immigrants infected with HIV may no longer be banned from living in the U.S. for the first time in more than 20 years. A $50 billion Senate bill (SB 2731) intended to combat AIDS in Africa and other impoverished areas may effectively repeal a 1987 ban prohibiting travel and immigration for people infected with HIV. The U.S. is one of several countries to have such a rule, including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Russia, the Associated Press reports. Supporters of the proposal say the policy is dated and must be eliminated. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, said even China has lifted...

U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry is taking aim at the Acela bullet train, saying the 8-year-old line meant to zip passengers between Boston and Washington is riddled with speed and safety issues that have thrown its swift mission off track. “Are you kidding? That train can go 150 miles an hour, (but) it goes that for, what, a couple of miles?” Kerry scoffed. “I want America to have a first-rate high-speed rail system. A high-speed rail that really lives up to the name and gets people there in the time that we ought to be aiming for.” Kerry plans to...

Speaking Well of the Dead Crisis November 1997 Fr. George William Rutler 0n July 29, 1997, a representative philosophe of our abortion culture, retired Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, was lavishly eulogized in St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where the Requiem Mass for President Kennedy had been sung in 1963. Richard Cardinal Cushing was relatively constrained back then, because liturgical depredations had not yet switched into high gear. It was not thus when our president, who vetoed the ban on partial-birth abortions, was permitted to announce to all corners of the cathedral for consumption in all corners of the...

John Kerry went on record on Sunday July 6th, stating that he did not believe John McCain was fit to serve as President. Additionally, he mentioned that: "John McCain has flip-flopped on more issues than I was even ever accused possibly of thinking about..." The thing that caught my attention here is that Kerry is accusing McCain of being a flip-flopper on several issues... the mere fact that he is even MAKING this unwarranted claim is yet ANOTHER flip flop from Kerry himself! My question to Senator Kerry is if John McCain is so horribly unqualified and unfit to serve...

WASHINGTON (AP) - John Kerry says Republican John McCain doesn't have the judgment to be president. If that's the case, then it's probably a good thing McCain rejected overtures from Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, to form a bipartisan ticket and run with Kerry as his candidate for vice president. Kerry had no kind words his Senate colleague Sunday, accusing McCain of poor decision-making on everything from backing tax cuts for the wealthy to making support for continuing the U.S. military presence in Iraq the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. "John McCain ... has proven that he has...

Kerry: McCain's Judgment Is Dangerous WASHINGTON, July 6, 2008(CBS) Sen. John Kerry believes that the presumptive Republican nominee for president is adhering to the Bush Administration orthodoxy in ways that call into question his carefully-nurtured image as a political maverick. "John McCain has changed in profound and fundamental ways that I find personally really surprising, and frankly upsetting," the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts said on CBS' Face The Nation. "This is a different John McCain. This is not the Senator John McCain; this is want-to-be president John McCain. "And the result is that John McCain has flip-flopped on more issues...