DNC 2012: John Kerry’s speech to the Democratic National Convention (Full text)

Below are the remarks of Sen. John Kerry as delivered to the Democratic National Convention on September 6, 2012:

Thank you. Thank you. In this -- in this campaign we have a fundamental choice. Will we protect our country and our allies? Advance our interests and ideals? Do battle where we must and make peace where we can? Or will we entrust our place in the world to someone who just hasn’t learned the lessons of the last decade? We’ve all learned Mitt Romney doesn’t know much about foreign policy. But he has all these Neo-Con advisers who know all the wrong things about foreign policy. He would rely on them. After all he’s the great out-sourcer. But I say to you this is not the time to outsource the job of commander in chief.

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(APPLAUSE)

Our opponents -- our opponents like to talk about American exceptionalism, but all they do is talk. They forget that we’re exceptional, not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things. We break out of the Great Depression, win two World Wars, save lives fighting AIDS, pull people out of poverty, defend freedom, go to the moon and produce exceptional people who even give their lives for civil rights and for human rights. Despite...

(APPLAUSE)

...and despite -- and despite what you heard in Tampa, an exceptional country does care about the rise of the oceans and the future of the planet.

(APPLAUSE)

That -- that is a responsibility -- that is a responsibility from the Scriptures. And that too is a responsibility of the leader of the free world. The only thing exceptional about today’s Republicans is that almost without exception, they oppose everything that has made America exceptional in the first place. An exceptional nation demands exceptional leadership.

KERRY: It demands the leadership of an exceptional president and, my fellow Americans, that president is Barack Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, just -- just measure the disaster and disarray that he inherited. A war of choice in Iraq had become a war without end and a war of necessity in Afghanistan had become a war of neglect.

Our alliances were shredded. Our moral authority was in tatters. America was isolated in the world. Our military was stretched to the breaking point; Iran marching towards a nuclear weapon unchecked and Osama Bin Laden was still plotting.

It took President Obama to make America lead like America again.

(APPLAUSE)

It took President Obama to restore our moral authority. It took President Obama to ban torture. The president understands that our values don’t limit our power. They magnify it.

He showed that global leadership is a strategic imperative for America, not a favor that we do to other countries. And President Obama kept his promises.

He promised to end the war in Iraq and he has. And our heroes have come home. He promised to end the war in Afghanistan responsibly and he is and our heroes are coming home.

(APPLAUSE)

He promised to focus like a laser on al-Qaeda and he has. And our forces have elminated more of its leadership in the last three years than in all the eight years that came before. And...