US: After two days of packaging the Republican party as moderate and President Bush as a loving family man and strong leader, the gloves came off yesterday, with Vice President Dick Cheney launching a series of scathing personal attacks on Democratic candidate John Kerry, writes Conor O'Clery, in New York
Senator Kerry was also lacerated by one of his own party members when Senator Zell Miller of Georgia told the 5,000 Republican delegates in Madison Square Garden that "in these dangerous times" he could not be trusted to lead the country.
Breaking with the tradition of staying quiet during the a rival convention, Senator Kerry hit back yesterday, using a speech to a veterans' convention in Nashville, Tennessee, to charge President Bush with responsibility for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq.
Mr Bush arrived in New York from Ohio yesterday and will deliver his acceptance speech tonight at the climax of the four-day convention which has been marked by sometimes violent anti-Bush demonstrations.
Security at Madison Square Garden was stepped up sharply last night after 10 anti-globalisation protesters managed to penetrate a labyrinth of security to disrupt yesterday morning's session on youth. As White House chief of staff Andrew Card was speaking, they jumped up, blew whistles, chanted, "Bush kills" and exposed T-shirts reading "Bush Drop Global Debt Now".
Mr Cheney contrasted the "steadfast, strong leadership" of President Bush with the "flip-flopping" of his rival in 20 years in the Senate, according to advance excerpts from his prime-time acceptance speech.
"John Kerry sees two Americas, America sees two John Kerrys," he said, referring to the central theme of Mr Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, that there are two Americas, one rich and the other underprivileged.
While less popular nationally than Mr Edwards, the rarely smiling Vice President has generated roars of approval from delegates every time he appears in a special viewing box.
The defection of Senator Zell Miller, who gave the keynote speech for Bill Clinton in 1992, is a bitter blow to Mr Kerry. The conservative southern Democrat said that, "motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator". His support for Mr Bush "has to do with the kind of man he is; it has to do with the times that we live in, the very dangerous times we live in, and it also has something to do with President Bush's opponent," said Mr Miller, who three years ago called Senator Kerry an "authentic hero".
After weeks of ineffective campaigning and under pressure from Democrats to come out fighting, Senator Kerry fired back yesterday on the issue that has dominated the Republican convention.
Referring to Mr Bush's statement on Monday (rescinded on Tuesday) that the war on terror was not winnable, Mr Kerry said, "I absolutely disagree. With the right policies, this is a war we can win, this is a war we must win, and this is a war we will win."
The Massachusetts senator accused Mr Bush of failing to heed the advice of senior generals on the number of troops needed for post-war operations, failing to secure the country's borders, failing to plan for the political aftermath "despite clear and precise bipartisan warnings", failing to share responsibility with NATO or the United Nations and short-changing the Iraqi police. "Today's terrorists have secured havens in Iraq that were not there before," he said. "And we have been forced to reach accommodation with those who have repeatedly attacked our troops."
Mr Kerry voted in 2002 to give Mr Bush the authority for war and said recently that he would still do so in hindsight, even knowing that no weapons of mass destruction have been found.
"When it comes to Iraq, it's not that I would have done one thing differently, I would have done almost everything differently," Mr Kerry said in his speech to the American Legion, in which he charged that extremism had "gained momentum" as a result of Mr Bush's miscalculations.
"I wouldn't have ignored my senior military advisers. I would have made sure that every soldier put in harm's way had the equipment and body armour they needed. I would have built a strong, broad coalition of our allies around the world. And if there's one thing I learned from my service, I would never have gone to war without a plan to win the peace."
On Tuesday California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger drew on his childhood in Soviet-occupied Austria to endorse President Bush's war on terrorism, which he said was "more insidious than communism".
"To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: 'Don't be economic girlie men!'" he said to laughter and cheers, evoking a line from a TV spoof of his character.
Mr Karl Rove, chief political adviser to President Bush, yesterday compared the American war on terrorism to the British war with the IRA. "This is going to be more like the conflict in Northern Ireland, where the Brits fought terrorism, and there's no sort of peace accord with al-Qaeda saying, 'We surrender,'" he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
He was responding to Mr Bush's comment on Monday that the US could not win the war on terror.