Real Kato Blog: The Republican Convention, Day 4

The old razzle-dazzle...

(This article is long and hastily put-together, so I apologize for any editing mistakes.)

It's the big day for the Republicans. We're starting off with... Dorothy Hamill and Lynn Swann? Uh, yeah, we just love those washed-up athletes and their corny award-show speeches. Click, I'm going to watch the Utah/Texas A&M game on ESPN for a while. The Aggies are losing; maybe that's a sign.

Back to the show.

Tommy Franks

It's very disconcerting. Tommy Franks speaks... in a halting manner he breaks... sentences in the middle then... he runs the... sentences together how... weird.

Franks says Iraq is no longer a place that harbors terrorists. (To my eye, thanks to our invasion, now it's not only harboring terrorists, it's breeding them.) He says we invaded Iraq to "take the fight to the terrorists". (So yet again we see that you're unable to distinguish Iraq from al-Qaeda.) Now he's talking about "the WMDs we all believed were there". (Not all of us, dude.)

Franks, like several other speakers, talks about the vast coalition we built to go into Iraq. Fact check time: of the 45 members of the "coalition of the willing", only 30 have been publicly identified. More than 20 only provided "political support", and most of those because they wanted quid pro quo support for their own agendas. Only three or four provided combat troops. More than 1100 americans have died, compared to sixty-some casualties for all the other countries combined. That means we're carrying 95% of the death burden.

Texas A&M is now losing by 20. It's not even halftime yet.

Mel Martinez

Mel Martinez first talks about Hurricane Frances. Hmm, I wonder how people will deal with the aftermath of the hurricane? Probably by relying on millions of dollars in federal handouts from FEMA. You know, I think republicans should voluntarily forgo any disaster relief money, because it's like welfare, right? Shouldn't we "believe in the ability of individual Americans" to make it on their own?

This guy is a dull speaker too. It's funny how many accomplished politicians are bad orators. People are bored and distracted.

Martinez mentions Cuba. People applaud nervously; maybe they know how Bush's anti-family Cuba policy is hurting him.

He says Bush believes in a government that spends less. I wonder if people realize that government spending has increased under Bush's watch. We'll talk about that more when Bush speaks.

Okay, I'm getting bored with him now.

George Pataki

Pataki is "going to be brief". There's something to cheer about.

He starts with the expected 9/11 stuff. Not that this has anything to do with anything; he just wants to thank America for their post 9/11 support. Okay, that's nice.

Now into the meat of the speech. It looks like he's going to highlight Bush's "accomplishments". The so-called economic turnaround, and the Bush tax cut. The "no child left behind" education policy. The Medicare prescription drug benefit. Federal funding for faith-based charities. I can't be sure if he's really highlighting the policies themselves, or merely that Bush did what he said he was going to do.

It wouldn't be a Republican speech if the speaker didn't lash into Kerry and label him a flip-flopper. The crowd loves this stuff. Here's the catch phrase: "win one for the Gipper, lose one with the flipper". Ugh. I hate catch phrases; they encourage people to stop thinking.

More 9/11. Oh wow, now he's implying that Clinton didn't respond strongly enough to previous attacks. Are you suggesting that Bush would have done something differently back then? Yeah, that's easy for you to say. What was your response after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Pataki?

More defense of the war in Iraq. This is becoming clichŽ. He's a pretty good speaker, I'll give him that, but this just too much hot air. I guess he served his purpose, though: he's just rallying pep for Dubya.

George W. Bush

Bush gives us the tagline right up front: "a safer world and a more hopeful America." Do you mean, more hopeful than the last four years under your watch?

He repeats what Pataki said about his "accomplishments": the education policy, the prescription drug benefit. "Nothing will hold us back" is another catch phrase. Now he's talking about the tax cut again, and the growing economy. And, of course, he talks about defending the country. That's it. I think Democrats have an angle of attack here; there aren't that many accomplishments to tout, and each of them is arguable. The "no child left behind" act is underfunded; the prescription drug benefit is a confusing muddle and is more expensive than promised; the economy is wobbling and failing to create better-paying jobs; and it's debatable whether the country is any safer than before.

He says the government should help people, and not run their lives. Hmm. That doesn't sound like a Republican philosophy. Are you going to expand on that? I guess not.

He's starting to talk about transforming the tax code, changing health care, changing pension plans. Uh-oh, I smell the unmistakable stench of privatization here. And there's a whiff of voodoo economics too.

The policy points are coming fast now. First is the old promise to cut taxes, reduce spending, and reduce government regulation. (Yeah, it's not as if we need safe food, water, and air.) I wonder where those spending cuts we'll come. (Hint: Bush won't say. Probably because we'll keep spending more and more, and jacking up the deficit higher and higher.)

Bush says we'll reduce foreign energy dependence, expand trade with other countries, and enact tort reform. (He gives no details in the speech, but there's some information on his web site. The energy policy is interesting; it's billions of dollars in federal programs, and tax incentives for conservation initiatives like hybrid cards... these are all things that Republicans have opposed in the past.)

He promises tax simplification. I think all Republicans are required to make this promise every now and then. It'll never happen, of course; the House of Representatives (you know, those guys that actually write tax laws) are too beholden to special interests to let go of their favorite loopholes.

More economic programs: increased funding for job training and community colleges; "American opportunity zones" for tax benefits, job training, and housing in areas hit by manufacturing job losses. How on earth does he plan to pay for all these big government programs? And why aren't Republicans asking this question?

Health care initiatives: he favors allowing small companies to negotiate premiums collectively versus insurance companies. (Is there anyone, besides the insurance companies, who's opposed to this?) He wants tax-free health savings accounts. (Funny thing about those tax-sheltered accounts... they make the tax code more complicated while also disproportionately benefiting the wealthy.) He wants to open community or rural health care centers in every poor county; that's yet another big government program. Oh, here's the thing that brings a lot of cheers from the crowd: limits on medical malpractice claims. Sure, because the government should decide how much human lives are worth.

More economic policies: Laws that "allow" employees to choose flex time and comp time instead of overtime. (Hmm, that seems like a veiled attempt to let companies get out of paying overtime benefits.) A benefit program to promote home ownership. (Another big government program.)

Oh, man, here's this privatization of Social Security thing again. Okay, someone has got to set the record straight on this. If we allow the current workforce to withhold part of their Social Security taxes to invest in a private account, then the Social Security trust fund will go bankrupt even faster. People really don't understand how Social Security works (it's a tax that funds an entitlement, not a savings plan), and it's extremely irritating.

Education policy: Bush promises to improve all schools by raising standards, and providing a "record level of funding". (I guess that means, this time we'll fund our programs properly, and leave no child behind [again]. Somehow we'll get the money for all this; maybe we can just put it on our credit cards or something.) He's challenging the "soft bigotry of low expectations". (Okay, that's a pretty good line, but it's also a disguised step towards ending affirmative action programs.) He promises funding for high school early-intervention programs (tick, another big government program). High school exit exams. More Pell grants. Guaranteed health care for children. It's all becoming a blur. I hope the Kerry camp is keeping score, because all of these things can be attacked in one way or another.

Obligatory Kerry-bashing moment: We'll label him an old-school tax-and-spend Massachusetts liberal; we'll make up some phony $2 trillion number about the cost of his programs, but say nothing about the cost of Bush's programs. Sheesh.

Now the reach to the far right. Yes, let's demonize those lazy welfare queens by promoting welfare reform that "strengthens family and requires work". (That'd be great if jobs were actually available, and if those jobs paid enough to make ends meet, and if child care were available for single moms, and if affordable housing and public transportation were available, etc. etc. etc. This is typically Republican, by the way: making people responsible for something without giving them the means for being successful. "You're on your own, you lazy leech on society.")

Going even further right: a pro-life message, support for funding of faith-based charities (does that include all faiths?), "protection of marriage". He'll appoint judges who "know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law". (In other words, he'll replace those Ninth Circuit loonies who actually think the first amendment means something; that way we can bring Christianity back into schools and government.)

Just in case people didn't get it hammered into their heads before, Bush reminds us how he's led us through the events of 9/11. Blah blah blah twin towers blah blah whatever it takes blah blah. "U.S.A.! U.S.A!" The crowd goes wild. OH! Breaking news: he said "nuke-u-lar"! Everybody drink!

Ah, there's a hubbub. Someone is getting thrown out. Everyone is distracted, including Bush, who doesn't understand why people aren't listening to him. But he keeps talking. Blah blah blah america is safer blah blah Saddam Hussein blah blah. There's another protestor now. Haw.

(While we're distracted a moment, let me make a point to Republicans about Iraq. Look: no one questions that a free and Democrat Iraq is a good thing. What we question are the methods. If we were so right about invading Iraq, if the reasons were so compelling, why weren't we able to convince our allies around the world and a majority of the U.N. Security Council? When we invade Iraq but don't invade Iran, Syria, Cuba, Palestine, Cuba, or North Korea, do you see how it looks like we have ulterior motives such as money or politics? Why didn't we have a good plan for the post-war period? Why did underestimate the budget and our troop requirements so badly? Why are we making our soldiers stay for such long periods of time without adequate breaks? Why are we shouldering most of the cost of the war? Why aren't we letting other countries participate more in the reconstruction? Why are we giving such lucrative contracts to certain companies [whose names rhyme with Shmalliburton], but looking the other way while they defraud us of millions of dollars?)

Okay, back to the speech now.

He talks about supporting our troops and the $87 billion spending bill that Kerry opposed. You know, I'd like to see one bill that provides money for troop equipment and salary, and a separate bill for money going to Halliburton and reconstruction efforts. We didn't buy $87 billion in body armor, you know. (Why doesn't Kerry fight this more?)

Bush is now naming countries of the "coalition of the willing". See my fact check, above.

He mentions two former Iraqi prisoners of Saddam, who were tortured for crimes they didn't commit. Um, kind of like the prisoners we tortured at Abu Ghraib, eh? You might not want to go down this path, George.

Bush says peace between Israel and Palestine is within reach. How are you going to accomplish this? What is your policy going to be? Oh wait, this is just rhetoric now, not policy. It's part of a statement that it's America's place to "advance freedom" in the world. Here's the Bush Doctrine: we will invade any country on any pretext and figure out the justification afterwards.

Okay, he appears to be summing up now. He's talking about 9/11, the character of Americans, hope. It's pretty grandiose, but kinda poetic too.

The end! Where are the f***ing balloons?

It's a pretty good speech. In fact, for you, George, it was probably the best you've given. It'll play well to the masses. It might swing a few voters. But none of the Democratic base will be swayed; we've heard all of it before.

I'll declare the Republicans the winner of Day 4. That makes the final score 2.5 to 1.5 in favor of the Democrats. Not that this score means anything. In the next couple of days, I'll put together a summary view of both the Democratic and Republican conventions, and what it all might mean for November.

Texas A&M, by the way, lost 41 to 21.

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