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Slate - The senator's rumpled shirt sagged over his trousers. He thanked the audience for waiting, praised its "good humor," and launched into an impromptu comic routine. His timing was excellent; his deadpan was worthy of late-night TV. Gesturing to a nearby piano, he joked that for a minute there, he thought he'd been booked for a recital. He recalled Bill Clinton's suggestion that presidents be allowed to serve three terms. "I promise just to serve two terms," said Kerry, adding, "Republicans do it differently. … They just have the son repeat the father's whole first term." His language was salty and boisterous. "What the hell's going on?" he teased. As the audience got into it, he demanded, "Yeah, applaud! Come on!"
Turning serious, Kerry reeled off several good lines I'd never heard from him before. He charged that President Bush's tax cut had "trickled on" the middle class. He accused the administration of "opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in American cities." He dismissed Bush's conservative reputation, arguing that "no conservative Republican in America would run up the deficits" as Bush had done. Referring to Bush's Iraq victory speech, Kerry cracked, "I know something about working with aircraft carriers for real. I think it takes more than having a very skilled Navy pilot land you on an aircraft carrier to make up for two and a half million jobs lost."
Kerry couldn't resist a few flowery allusions to President Kennedy and the moon landing. But overall, his presentation was refreshingly human. He dropped some of his G's. He raised both hands to his forehead to convey how crazy he thought Bush's tax cut was. It's hard to imagine Kerry mustering this much body language without Viagra. "This is a choice between common-sense American values—down-to-earth common sense—and a bunch of extremists who are prepared to undo 50 years of progress in this country," Kerry declared.
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