Vietnam, yadda yadda yadda, Today

I was harping about the paucity of Kerry’s resume long before the Democratic National Convention. It seems that the event and the candidate's speech only served to underscore how little he’s done over the past twenty years:

Paul Gigot notes in “The Patriot Act”

Yet the very vagueness of Mr. Kerry's promises is what gives the Bush campaign a chance to counterattack. Especially if you re-read his Thursday speech, it is not nearly as muscular as it tried to sound. Its hawkishness was mostly personal, more or less stopping in 1970 in the Mekong Delta. My guess is that this is all by design, since the last thing Mr. Kerry wants is a debate about his own antiterror policies. He wants to compare medals, not philosophies.

Bill Kristol in “The Last Refuge”

Unwilling to articulate a serious policy agenda, unable to explain why his record qualifies him to be president, John Kerry fled Thursday night to the refuge of patriotism.

NY Post: “What Kerry left out”

Watching last week's Democratic infomercial in Boston, one could be forgiven for thinking that John Kerry went straight from the Mekong Delta to the podium at the Fleet Center, with barely a stop in between.

and The American Spectator in “The MIA Senator”

There is a mighty good reason the Senate was mentioned in -- as I recall -- just about three sentences in a 46-minute speech. That tells you exactly where Kerry doesn't want to go.

Of all the columnists, I think Bill Kristol has the right idea: ignore Kerry and make the pitch directly to the American people that action in the Middle East has disrupted the terrorist network and made us safer in the long run. Save the barbs for the debates where, on both matters foreign and domestic, Bush can justifiably ask Kerry: “Where were you?”