Working hard, or hardly working?

From today’s Boston Globe, here’s an ironic comment from John Kerry: “I welcome hard work, I like hard work.”

That’s interesting considering that after twenty years in the Senate, John Kerry has almost no significant legislation he can call his own:

An Associated Press study found that Kerry has been lead sponsor on eight bills that passed Congress: Five ceremonial bills, two related to fishing and marine research, and one offering grants to small businesses owned by women.

And for the past two years, he’s been a ghost in the Senate chambers:

The publication Congressional Quarterly examined 119 recorded votes held in 2003 in which the president had taken a position. CQ found that Kerry was present for just 28 percent of those votes. In contrast, Kerry's colleague from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, was present for 97 percent of the votes.

For the 2004 session of Congress, Kerry has represented his constituency only 17 times out of 194 potential floor votes, for a 91% missed vote rate.

Between 1993 and 2001, Kerry sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee where he missed 76% of all meetings, including every single meeting in the year after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

John Kerry is fond of telling crowds that he’ll "fight for us." Question: what has he been doing for the past two decades?

[Cross-posted on Blogs for Bush]