We know that Kerry mispronounced a woman's name as he misled America last night, but did you catch this?

This is where I ended up scratching my head:

I ... I wish, I wish my parents could share this moment. They went to their rest in the last few years. But their example, their inspiration, their gift of opened eyes, of own ... open mind, and, and endless heart, and, and world that doesn't have an end are bigger and more lasting than any words at all.

Now if someone had told you George W. Bush said, "gift of opened eyes, of own ... open mind, and, and endless heart, and, and world that doesn't have an end are bigger and more lasting than any words at all," you'd believe it and you'd roll your eyes, or laugh.

The official transcript made sense out of it:

I wish my parents could share this moment. They went to their rest in the last few years, but their example, their inspiration, their gift of open eyes, open mind, and endless world are bigger and more lasting than any words.

PBS too reproduces the official "transcript" which is not at all a transcript: "a written record (usually typewritten) of dictated or recorded speech."

Interestingly, both also omit the silly opening line, "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty." It struck me immediately as a mistake, and I would suspect that his handlers felt the same way, hence its quiet demise in the official version. It felt like a cheap line, and it was surely meant to conjure images of Kerry the soldier.

However, they do retain the bit about being born in the "west wing" -- of the hospital.

Then there was the anecdote about riding his bike into Communist East Berlin, and there's little doubt that it changed him. Before long he was riding his political career into communist apologetics, and has spent the better part of his adult life passing freely from one side of the divide to the other as it suited him.

But enough about the past. John Kerry doesn't want to talk about his lies about war crimes in Vietnam. That would damage his current claim to war heroism. It's time to look at his record, as he invited us to do last night.

And according to John Kerry his record is this:

I ask you to judge me by my record: As a young prosecutor, I fought for victim's rights and made prosecuting violence against women a priority. When I came to the Senate, I broke with many in my own party to vote for a balanced budget, because I thought it was the right thing to do. I fought to put a 100,000 cops on the street.

And then I reached across the aisle to work with John McCain, to find the truth about our POW's and missing in action, and to finally make peace with Vietnam.

Now that's some record. I'm curious first how many (assistant) prosecutors don't care about victims, and how many pick and choose which the kinds of cases they prosecute. I wonder if Kerry ever said, "violence against a man? Let's put that case on the back burner." Of course not. That's just silly. But claiming that as a county prosecutor he made prosecuting violence against women a priority is equally silly. His jobwas to prosecute, not to prosecute certain cases, or to prosecute in certain ways. This kind of rhetoric is designed to buy the votes of women, and true to the leftist mindset, it fails to give women credit for seeing through cheap appeals.

Every prosecutor prosecutes violent offenders regardless of the gender of the victim. Your pain hurts no more than my own.

Now, in two decades as a senator Kerry did only three things:
1. He voted for a balanced budget.
2. He voted to put cops on the streets.
3. He worked with John McCain on POW/MIA issues and Vietnamese relations.

But now he's just being modest. He has apparently led the fight on numerous issues in the Senate.

In fact, while he only claims to have broken with his party to vote for a balanced budget, as recently as January he claimed that he led the fight:

[C]laiming to have "led the fight" for the balanced-budget measure is political puffery.

The measure was actually drafted by two Republicans, Sens. Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire and Phil Gramm of Texas. Kerry became one of about 40 co-sponsors.

At a 1985 news conference Kerry actually followed behind another Democrat, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who spoke in favor of it. The Washington Post described what happened next:

"Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) entered the room as the news conference broke up, saying he supports the measure now that he has been assured Social Security would not be cut."

Now there's leadership. Consider the fact that from his two decades in the Senate he listed three accomplishment when asking us to look at his record, and one of those accomplishments consisted of walking into a room at the end of a news conference and saying, essentially, "well, okay."

As for the 100,000 cops (a number never actually reached), thank not John Kerry, but Joe Biden of Delaware, who was at the head, and who is one Democrat who might make a serious run with the American people (which means the Democrats will never nominate him). And yet, this bill is remembered not as the project of any senator, but as the project of President Clinton. (One more note. Don't forget that the bill ultimately failed. Republicans were right: the new police went where they were needed least.)

Which leaves the record Kerry outlined for us with one issue: John McCain and Vietnam.

Okay. So John Kerry worked with John McCain, and supported two bills led by others. Is there nothing else in his record he could direct us to? Is it that his Senate career has been uneventful, that he has authored only 8 bills, and that the bulk of them had no real importance?

Asked recently what he has accomplished that wouldn't have happened had he not served in the Senate, Kerry replied: "There are actually a lot of things."

"Can I say that it wouldn't be done, that somebody else might not have picked up the cudgel?" he said in an Associated Press interview. "I don't know. But I know I led a lot of fights in the Senate that nobody else was doing and that made a difference."

His response prompted an examination of his record. Kerry has been the lead sponsor of eight bills that have become law. Two are related to his work on the Senate panel on oceans and fisheries - a 1994 law to protect marine mammals from being taken during commercial fishing and a 1991 measure for the National Sea Grant College Program Act, which finances marine research.

In 1999, President Clinton signed his bill providing grants to support small businesses owned by women.

The rest of the laws he saw passed were ceremonial - renaming a federal building, designating Vietnam Veterans Memorial 10th Anniversary Day, National POW/MIA Recognition Day and World Population Awareness Week in two separate years.

As I said above, that's some record.

Now, there wasn't much else of interest. Of course it was fun to see Jack Tripper, I mean John Edwards, appear to be directing an airplane with those rigid gestures, the point and then the thumbs up, over and over again when Kerry acknowledged him.

And it was a challenging to grapple with Kerry's new math which makes it four years since 9/11 (I finally decided he must be counting inclusively, which means he has at least one classical value).

And we saw that the piercing logic of John Edwards is as strong in Kerry:

You don't value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.

That's almost as sensible as the line about "senators and menators [sic] of congress," which the official "transcript" corrects to "senators and members of congress."

Now, why am I picking on flubs? Because, by gum, enough misstatement by Bush makes the rounds unedited, while these cats get a white-washing!

Oh yeah ... and because "menators of congress" just cracks me up.