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Opinion: Nancy Pelosi gives a heads up: Dems are in attack mode next week

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DENVER -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, moonlighting as co-chair of the Democratic National Convention, dropped a big hint this afternoon that once speakers take the stage when the gathering formally opens Monday, an arsenal of slings and arrows will be directed at Republicans -- unlike four years ago.

At the conclave in Boston that John Kerry and his aides orchestrated, word went out that orators were to low-key potshots at President Bush and the GOP. The plan was to accentuate the positive about Kerry -- especially his military service in Vietnam.

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Much to Kerry’s surprise, of course, the Swift Boat ad campaign turned that particular into a negative for him. And in general, many Democrats now see the tone adopted for the 2004 convention as flawed.

With that in mind, Pelosi was asked during a luncheon with reporters whether this year’s gathering of the Democratic tribe was going to have a harder-edge

Pelosi, without directly trashing the Kerry convention planners, left no doubt she agreed with the criticism of them. If she had had her druthers, she said, the confab would have been ‘about the Iraq war, not the Vietnam war.’

She then offered the type of scathing assessment of Bush’s tenure in the White House likely to be echoed again and again in the days ahead: ‘There isn’t an area of public policy that this administration hasn’t failed in.’

So there.

On another convention-related note, Pelosi held out the possibility that Sen. Ted Kennedy -- suffering from brain cancer and the subject of a Monday night tribute -- might appear in person.

She said she had talked with him recently and that ‘he sounded great. ... He sounded like a person who was going to be at this convention.’

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-- Don Frederick

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