I found Bush’s speech last night to be unusually bland, especially for the occasion. It wasn’t a disaster or a total embarrassment, but it also wasn’t a vision for the future or a reflection on four years of accomplishments.
In addition to my earlier post about the convention overall, here are a few observations from my indecipherable notes:
* “We went to the United Nations Security Council, which passed a unanimous resolution demanding the [Iraqi] dictator disarm, or face serious consequences.”
Does he really want to bring this up? We went to war because Hussein didn’t “disarm,” except Hussein didn’t really have weapons of mass destruction to disarm. Hardly the kind of thing Bush should try to remind us of.
* “Soon every senior will be able to get prescription drug coverage.”
Funny, I thought that was what was supposed to happen after Bush’s massive Medicare scam was passed into law last year. Sounds like an implicit acknowledgement of failure.
* “Because of you, women in Afghanistan are no longer shot in a sports stadium. Because of you, the people of Iraq no longer fear being executed and left in mass graves.”
This has been a standard part of Bush’s stump speech for over a year. What’s interesting, however, is that is used it also mention that the people of Iraq no longer fear Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers. I can’t imagine why Bush doesn’t mention that anymore.
* “Because religious charities provide a safety net of mercy and compassion, our government must never discriminate against them.”
Groups like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services have been receiving billions of dollars in government contracts for decades. When, exactly, were religious charities discriminated against?
* “Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.”
That’s a small part of the story.
While it’s true that the percentage of Americans who own their own homes (69.2%) is at a record high, it’s hard to attribute that to the current Republican leadership — the rate has increased every year since 1993, and in fact, grew faster on average during the Clinton administration.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, When Clinton came into office, homeownership stood at 63.7%. Clinton left office with home ownership up 3.8% to 67.5%. Under Bush, it’s gone up 1.7%.
In fact, since the mid 1960s, home ownership has typically gone up no matter who’s in office, though a couple of presidents — both Republican — proved an exception: During the 12 years Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush were in office, ownership rates dropped 1.2%.
* “In Afghanistan, terrorists have done everything they can to intimidate people, yet more than 10 million citizens have registered to vote in the October presidential election, a resounding endorsement for democracy.”
Actually, this is resounding endorsement for voter fraud. Afghanistan only has 9.8 million eligible voters. The fact that 10 million people have registered isn’t a good sign at all.
Then there were the things Bush conveniently chose not to emphasize: there were a grand total of zero references to unemployment, the deficit, the national debt, Iran (which just happens to be processing uranium right now), North Korea (which already has nuclear weapons), and Osama bin Laden (remember him?).
And finally, on a related note, the AP came through with the story of the day regarding last night — “Bush Glosses Over Complex Facts in Speech.” Be sure to take a look.