He's a fighter, not a worker

Here’s a telling statistic from John Kerry’s speech announcing the addition of Senator Handsome to the Democratic ticket: Kerry used the words “fight” or “fighting” eleven times but used a variation of “work” only once. Appropriately, Kerry used the past tense form of “work” (“Throughout those two years as well as four years before that, I have worked with John Edwards side by side and sometimes head to head.”) as Kerry has all but given up on his Senate career by missing 90% of the votes this session.

But if Kerry is committed to the fight fight fight for average Americans, an obvious question is: where has he been for the past twenty years? In the stump speech, which Andrew Sullivan ripped as “dreadful,” Kerry proclaimed he’ll be fighting for national healthcare, for energy independence, for a stronger military and for better jobs. Listening to the junior Senator from Massachusetts, you would imagine that he’s been toiling away the hours, pushing legislation through the Senate to redress these critical issues.

In fact, in two decades in the Senate, John Kerry has never sponsored legislation to address any of these issues. Here’s the Associated Press (via Fox News) with “Kerry’s Senate career short on law-making.”

Asked what he has accomplished during his 19 years in the Senate, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry gives a lengthy answer but has a short list of laws that bear his name.

And the New York Times explains how he got his nickname of “Live Shot Kerry” (mirror copy on John Edwards’ blog!):

The rap on Kerry's Senate career, according to fellow senators and congressional aides, has been that he is more interested in high-profile investigations — like those into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and Gen. Manuel Noriega of Panama — than in the grinding details of legislative procedure. He has deferred to his colleague Kennedy on most bills involving health and education and has few major bills to his name; when asked to summarize his legislative accomplishments, he often seems to struggle.

As well he might. In three-and-a-half terms in the Senate, here’s the sum of Kerry’s labor:

The Associated Press last July found that only eight laws had Kerry as their lead sponsor, five of them "ceremonial," two relating to the fishing industry, and one providing federal grants to support small businesses owned by women.

Never before has one man fought so hard – yet worked so little – to gain the Presidency.

[Cross-posted on Blogs for Bush]