Remember this? A dose of reality.

[whometense]

Too bad Kerry went so easy on Bush during the campaign. :eyes:

NEWARK, Ohio, Sept. 3 - Senator John Kerry opened the final 60 days of the presidential campaign on Friday with a slashing indictment of President Bush's record on jobs and health care, saying he had misled the United States into war in Iraq and left a trail of broken promises and worsened problems at home.

As his running mate and their wives swept across the electoral battlegrounds of Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, Mr. Kerry asked voters in this economically battered state to look past Mr. Bush's "last-minute promises" and focus on what he said were the facts: 1.7 million jobs lost since 2000, 1.4 million more people in 2003 without health insurance than the year before and 1.3 million more in poverty.

"Is that a reason to be re-elected?" Mr. Kerry said. "Folks, they've had four years. And what they've done is take America backwards."

<snip>

Criticizing the Republican convention as bitter and insulting one moment, then calling Mr. Bush dishonest the next, Mr. Kerry attacked against what he called his rivals' distortions and said the president's address Thursday made clear he "will literally say anything and do anything in order to try to get re-elected" - a line stolen from Mr. Bush, who used it regularly against Al Gore.

"Yesterday, I read that speech," Mr. Kerry told a crowd of thousands here in a heavily Republican county outside Columbus that Mr. Bush won by 22 percentage points in 2000. "Every time they open their mouths, they can't tell the truth about the things that we want to do. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It's time for us to have a president of the United States who can look you in the eye and when he does, you know you're being told the truth about your lives and about this country."

But it was on the economy that Mr. Kerry focused on here in Newark, a rural town of 46,000 where 4,300 people are unemployed and another local factory is set to lay off 784 workers next Thursday.

"All these attacks on me, I've been through worse, believe me - that's not what this is about," he said. "It's their attacks on you, that's what this is all about."

"Just today the secretary of labor stood up and said that 140,000 jobs being announced is something to celebrate in America," Mr. Kerry said. "My friends, at the rate that this administration is creating jobs, you're not going to have a net plus one job in the state of Ohio till the year 2011. I don't think this is something to celebrate, I think this is something to get to work on."

<snip>

Mr. Kerry was upbeat and feisty on the attack, even noting "this lonely voice over here" of a Bush supporter on the periphery of his rally. When his supporters yelled, "Two more months!" at the man, Mr. Kerry did their barb one better.

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste, ladies and gentlemen," he said, laughing.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[PresidentObama]

1. "A mind is a terrible thing to waste, ladies and gentlemen,"

Great line.

Ahhh the memories.

And this was around the time where Kerry looked down, and about out? And when he came back, won three debates, and made Bush look like the fool he is. :D