Kerry on Daily Show

John Kerry acquitted himself well opposite Jon Stewart on last night's The Daily Show. Of course, he was in friendly territory. A choice Stewart line:

Now how— how are you holding up? This has been a— it’s been a rough couple weeks. I’ve been following— I watch a lot of the cable news shows. So I understand that apparently you were never in Vietnam.

In general, Kerry deftly worked his campaign talking points on such subjects as Iraq and the outsourcing of jobs into the dialogue. A full transcript is HERE. But as for things you may not have heard from him before, excerpts are below.

On the subject of the attacks against him:

You know what it is, Jon? It— it— it’s disappointing because I think most Americans would like to have a much more intelligent conversation about where the country’s going. And— (APPLAUSE) yeah, I think that— you know, and— and, yeah, it’s a little bit disappointing. But believe it or not, I’ve been through worse.

On the subject of debating George W. Bush:

Well, that’s the test of debates. I mean, look, the President has won every debate he’s ever had. People need to understand that. He beat Ann Richards. He beat Al Gore. So he’s a good debater. And debates are sort of formulaic. But I believe that— the truth is what people are looking for. I have a better plan. I have a plan to put America back to work. I have a plan to provide healthcare to all Americans rather than see Americans lose it and pay more for it. We can go down a different road.

And on how he counters the "flip-flop charge":

By talking about things that really matter that people really wanna talk about. I mean, is it a flip-flop— I don’t know what compassionate conservative means. Does it mean cutting kids out of after-school programs? Does it mean drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? Does it mean sending kids to Iraq without body armor that’s state of the art? Does it mean— turning your— I mean, you can run through a list. Is that compassionate conservatism?