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.<\/p>\n
In addition to my earlier post about the convention overall, here are a few observations from my indecipherable notes:<\/p>\n
* “We went to the United Nations Security Council, which passed a unanimous resolution demanding the [Iraqi] dictator disarm, or face serious consequences.”<\/p>\n
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<\/i> disarm. Hardly the kind of thing Bush should try to remind us of.<\/p>\n
* “Soon every senior will be able to get prescription drug coverage.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
* “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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
* “Because religious charities provide a safety net of mercy and compassion, our government must never discriminate against them.”<\/p>\n
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?
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\n* “Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.”<\/p>\n
That’s a small part of the story<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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%. <\/p>\n 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%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n * “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.”<\/p>\n 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<\/a> at all.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>), North Korea (which already has nuclear weapons), and Osama bin Laden (remember him?).<\/p>\n