KERRYKID.CBS 07/30/04 7:44 AM-DLR   1:26
From the mouths of babes.  This is Dave Ross on the CBS Radio Network.
I know John Kerry is a very brave man... but I didn't realize how brave:
VANESSA:  "I'm here to share some secrets."
Not to take anything from his Vietnam service, but I think it takes a particular type of courage to let your kids talk about you at a party - especially one attended by 20,000 people and being watched by millions more.
I mean, when you throw a party, do you set aside a time for your kids to stand up and talk about the way you raised them?  I mean, come on!
Now of course Alexandra and Vanessa Kerry were reading their scripts, I realize that, but still - you never know what it is your kids will remember about you, and how it will come off.  Like Alexandra's story of the day the pet hamster was accidentally dumped into the lake, and given up for dead:
ALEXANDRA: "But my Dad jumped in, grabbed an oar, fished the cage from the water, hunched over the soggy hamster, and began to administer CPR."
You just know someone's going to come up with a cartoon now, showing John Kerry standing at a podium surrounded by a band of hamsters.  Soggy but grateful.
In any case, there's a lesson here for Dads everywhere.
Because most of us, when we raise our kids, never stop to think - what will they say about me when they grow up.
Well, my advice is, start thinking about it while there's still time.  Cheer for them at their soccer games, save their hamsters, and remind about what they have:
ALEXANDRA:  "Remember that you are alive, and that you are an American.  Those two things make you the luckiest little girl in the world.
Because YOUR kids probably won't have a teleprompter.  They'll be ad-libbing.   Now this.   ~C:\works\files\KERRYKID.CBS