--- Begin Message ---
_McCain's Big Speech: More Prison Cell Than Policy_
(http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/09/9598_mccain_acceptance_speech_republican_conventi
on.html)
Number of sentences in John McCain's acceptance speech about his experience
as a POW in Vietnam: 43.
Number of sentences about his 25 years in the House and Senate: 8.
The convention ended as it began: a commemoration of McCain's hellish years
in a Hanoi prison cell four decades ago. The political equation was a simple
one: POW equals patriotic hero equals a fighting president. Before McCain
walked down the long runway at St. Paul's Xcel Center, a baritone voice
declared
over the P.A., "When you've lived in a box....you put your people first."
Case closed.
But there was a speech to get through. And before McCain arrived at the
climactic I-was-a-POW finale, he delivered, in wooden style, a
no-better-than-par
speech that was mostly a series of traditional GOP buzz phrases: lower
taxes, cut spending, open markets. He noted, "We believe in a strong defense,
work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of
law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the
bench. We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities."
(Just not community organizers.) Was the speechwriter who penned Sarah Palin's
acceptance speech too busy to work on McCain's?
Unlike most speakers at the convention, McCain acknowledged that some
Americans are facing tough times. "I fight for Bill and Sue Nebe from
Farmington
Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing
market," he said. "Bill got a temporary job after he was out of work for seven
months. Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills." And he said he would fight
for Jake and Toni Wimmer of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. "Jake," he
explained, "works on a loading dock; coaches Little League, and raises money
for the
mentally and physically disabled. Toni is a schoolteacher, working toward
her Master's Degree. They have two sons, the youngest, Luke, has been
diagnosed
with autism." But how would McCain help these folks? Moments later, he
offered a dumbed-down version of his economic plan: " I will keep taxes low
and
cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to
our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government
spending. He will increase it." (By the way, many analysts and journalists
have
repeatedly noted that Obama's economic plan would cut income taxes far more
than McCain for Americans below the top 1 percent.)
Over and over, McCain cited his love of country and his dedication to the
nation that "saved" him. He tried to present himself as the candidate of
change,
who wants to transform "almost everything: from the way we protect our
security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond
to
disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train
our workers to the way we educate our children." (He did not explain why
after eight years of a Republican administration the country needs so much
change.) McCain reminded the GOP delegates that he has on occasion challenged
his
own party. His domestic policy ideas, the few he offered, did not rouse the
crowd--except when he called for more oil and gas drilling. In response, the
delegates once again enthusiastically chanted, "Drill, baby, drill!" It was
one
of the biggest shout-outs of the night. The audience was notably silent when
McCain called for boosting alternative energy sources.
Maverick, fighter, fixer--McCain said he was all of that. But, above all, he
was McCain the warrior who had returned home. He had fought for the country
once before--and he had suffered. He will fight for it again. "I have the
record and the scars to prove it," he declared. "Senator Obama does not." Wave
the bloody shirt.
McCain denounced the "constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving"
the nation's problems. But this week McCain had commanded a convention that had
reprised the standard GOP playbook of spin and fear. Speaker after speaker
accused Barack Obama of plotting to raise taxes on middle-income voters. They
portrayed Obama as weak, indecisive, inexperienced--particularly concerning
national security. On the final night, retired Lieutenant General Carol
Mutter, denouncing Obama's stance on Iraq, told the delegates that the United
States' "enemies don't talk about timelines for retreat." Yet the United
States'
ally in Iraq--the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki--has called for
a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops. (Whoops: reality.) Repeatedly, GOP
speakers claimed that Obama is not a man who can handle evil. "We cannot
afford a president who thinks you can negotiate with evil," proclaimed
Representative Mary Fallin, an Oklahoma Republican. But didn't Ronald Reagan
negotiate
with the Evil Empire? On the first night of the convention, the delegates
watched a tribute film to the late President Gerald Ford that celebrated his
negotiation of an arms control treaty with the Soviets. (A onetime
negotiator-with-evil, Henry Kissinger, was sitting in the V.I.P. section as
Fallin spoke.)
Branding Democrats as national security weaklings and tax-and-spend drunkards
was predictable. After all, the convention planners didn't dare defend the
current administration. In fact, there was hardly a mention of the Bush
presidency--except when George W. Bush addressed the convention by video on its
first night. And there was no talk of what the Republicans did between 1994 and
2006 when they controlled both houses of Congress for most of that time. The
convention was a very Soviet-like affair; the Bush administration and the
Republican Congress of recent years were airbrushed out of the picture.
And there was a heavy dose of us-versus-them--with "them" being the usual
targets of conservative agitators: the media, liberal elites, Hollywood
celebrities, "cosmopolitan" Americans (as Rudy Giuliani, _of all people_
(http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2008/09/forget-palin-giuliani-was-the.html)
, put
it), and the government. McCain was exploiting the culture wars. Sarah Palin
praised small-town America and mocked Obama for having been an urban community
organizer. Onetime football coach Joe Gibbs called for a government of
people who "follow [God's] game plan, his Bible, his word," adding that John
McCain would be such a leader.
There were more words spoken at the convention about the evils of elites than
the subprime meltdown, more words devoted to depicting Obama as an ambitious
egomaniac than to addressing the health care crisis. Former Senator Fred
Thompson dismissed the Democratic convention for focusing too much on the
economic challenges of the day. (He nearly called the Democrats whiners.) When
Cindy McCain, the candidate's wife and a multimillionaire heiress, recalled
traveling on the campaign trail and seeing Americans facing "difficult
situations," she noted that these Americans could "make things right" if the
federal
government would get "out of our way." A string of speakers accused Obama of
failing to recognize the true threat of Islamic terrorism, but none of the
major speakers said much--or anything--about Afghanistan. McCain himself
uttered
not a single word about Afghanistan. And nothing about climate change. More
words at the convention were spilled about McCain the POW than job loss in
America. And the Vietnam War was mythologized over and over as a fight waged
for
America's freedom and survival.
On the last night of the convention, Senator Sam Brownback told the
delegates, "It's not about him; it's about us." Not really. It was about what
happened to John McCain forty years ago and what that means to Americans today.
His
acceptance speech broke no new ground, and it was not meant to. It was just
another reminder to cap a convention of reminding. The balloons then dropped,
video fireworks fell, the crowd cheered. And for McCain, it was on to the
final battle, the old soldier, faith-tested and faith-proved, accompanied by a
stylish hockey mom representing small-town goodness--against those whose
mettle
have not been tested, whose love of country has not been tested, whose
America is rather different from the America of the Republican convention.
**************Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog,
plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.
(http://www.stylelist.com/trends?ncid=aolsty00050000000014)
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To post: / Para enviar mensajes: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe: / Para dejar el grupo:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Page in English: http://groups.google.com/group/hispanic-usa?hl=en
Pagina en espanol: http://groups.google.com/group/hispanic-usa?hl=es
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
--- End Message ---
