The One and Only Bush Acceptance Speech Thread

Great Debates
41

I don’t really think it was his delivery that bothered me. To be honest, its one of the best public speeches (delivery-wise) I’ve seen from Bush.

Obviously he had his trademark stutters (where it looked like he was clearly lost in the script), his slight lack of comedic timing (his joke vis-a-vis Kerry The Republican just didn’t mesh well as he told it) and his general robotic-ness - but to be honest, these were to be expected.
I thought it was more of a tug-at-the-heart kind of address than Kerry’s. Way more. It lacked sufficient content to get me really excited, it played on the “We Will Win” approach much more. I don’t think it will sway targeted fence-sitters who aren’t moved emotionally.

But I thought his teary eyes recounting the events of 9-11 was pretty touching. If he meant it, which though by no means certain, I think he did. Let’s face it, he’s not really much of an orator anyway - what are the chances he could convincingly fake crying?

42

Fake? Nah. He just reminded himself “Tomorrow they find out we’re cranking up the Medicare premiums, and job growth is just sorta-kinda-ok. I might lose!..”

And the tears come rolling down the cheeks…

43

I’m still waiting for someone on the opposite side of the aisle from me (Brutus? Shodan? Sam?) to tell me what was compelling about content of this speech. Not the deliverly, the policy. The proposals for the next four years. Serious question.

This was supposed to be the ballyhood Vision Speech, the Agenda for the Next Four Years. I didn’t sense much vision, and the initiatives seemed like weak tea and recycles from four years ago (“but this time we’ll do it right!” :slight_smile: ). Tell me what I missed.

44

So…we still going to Mars?

45

indirectly, that’s my point exactly.

46

lol, good question that. :smiley: My guess…no.

Well, I don’t know what hard core Republicans got out of the speech. Mostly it dismayed me…it was more of the same split personality stuff that has characterized GW. On the one hand he is putting forth his ‘compassionate conservative’ schtick…which looks a lot like liberalism to me. On the other hand he is attempting conservative fiscal theory by cutting taxes and keeping them low. However, appearently no one has told him that you can’t increase government AND spending at the same time you cut taxes. I tried explaining this to my wife and my dad during the speech…that this ISN’T a fiscal conservative talking, and that many of these social programs he is spouting off about would sound completely normal…coming from a liberal.

GW reminds me a lot of Clinton on this actually. Clinton adopted many conservative Republican positions and made them his own…and took the wind out of the sails of a lot of Republicans that way. Liberals still loved Clinton even while he spent a good protion of his presidency basically ignoring them. However, Bush has been extremely unsuccessful at taking liberal positions and getting any real political milage out of them. Liberals STILL hate him reguardless, and conservatives shudder thinking about the cost of all this government…and the inevitable drag on the economy.

The man simply defied definition by yours truely…he is a social strong conservative and a fiscal weak liberal (to use terms from a recent political survey thread)…and thats a strange beast indeed.

-XT

47

Maybe you missed the news, but a few weeks ago the Senate pulled all funding for the new Exploration Vision for NASA in their budget proposal. Then the Bush White House announced that if they didn’t put every nickel of funding back in, Bush would exercise the veto for the first time and kill the whole budget resolution.

I’d say that’s pretty strong support. So yes, the Exploration Initiative is still moving forward. Whether we’re going to Mars or not is another issue, as it always was.

As for Bush’s speech… meh. A mixed bag. On the one hand, it sounded pretty damned liberal to me. A laundry list of big-spending initiatives. If the Democrats are smart, they’ll hit him on the cost of all that.

On the other hand, the general thrust of what he was saying domestically was dead on. The needs of the 21st century are different than the needs of the 20th century. The workforce is mobile, people don’t tend to work for the same company their entire lives, etc. So his solution is an ‘ownership society’, where people control their destiny by owning their own retirement packages, health care plans, homes, etc. That was spot on. I just hope he leaves most of that to the market, and limits his reforms to transforming programs that are already in place.

The foreign policy stuff was fine. I agree with most or all of it. It was also the strongest part of his speech.

Bush’s biggest strength, though, is the political capital he has earned by doing pretty much what he says he’ll do. He’s proven to the public that he’s a man of his word. Now he can capitalize on that. When he says that he wants to work to reform health care, I think pretty much everyone believes that that’s exactly what he’ll attempt to do. We may not agree with his solution, but Bush isn’t known for empty rhetoric. Saddam found that out. Remember Bush’s first year in office before 9/11? Pundits were wondering what he’d do next, because he had accomplished almost everything he had promised in that first year.

In his speech he played into that strength. He went on about how at least with him you know where he stands, and you can be sure he’s not just yanking you for political purposes. The self-deprecating stuff was done perfectly. The humor was good, and delivered well. Overall, it was one of the better speeches he’s delivered. In the top two or three, I’d say.

For the record, I thought that the Democrats had a good convention as well, except for Kerry’s “Reporting for Duty” thing, which I thought was shameless and blatant. I agree with Bob Dole when he told Kerry, “Everyone knows you went to Vietnam. People like quiet heros. You should stop talking about it.” I think wide swaths of Red America (and red Alberta, where I am) really respect quiet heros. We love to tell stories about grandfathers who never mention their service, and then after they die you find a box full of their medals. That sort of thing. Humility. I think it was a mistake for Kerry to play the Vietnam card at his convention. Thank god they gave up on that lunatic plan to find a swift boat and actually put it in the convention center.

Kerry’s wife was also a disaster. She should learn that she’s not the one running for office. The first lady’s job is to come out and make the case for her husband (just like it would be the first husband’s job if the nomineee were a woman). She didn’t. She came out and gave a strange speech about women having the right to speak up for themselves that was about 20 years out of date, and hardly mentioned the guy actually running for president. You know, her husband. Laura Bush kicked her ass. Laura’s speech, by the way, was the perfect first-lady speech. She praised her husband, told everyone good things she knew about him that they didn’t, and expressed her compassionate values. She is a huge asset to Bush.

Other than that, it was a strong convention for the Dems. Barack Obama became famous with a single speech. Edwards gave a good speech. Clinton knocked it out of the park. Kind of strange that the worst speeches came from the headliners, though.

48

Sam: I’ll take it from all of the above that you didn’t think much of the domestic policy proposals for the four years, which is the same reaction I had. Not the delivery, which you seem fairly enthused about, but the meat.

49

It was a mixed bag. When he talked about government having to be flexible and respond to changes in society, I thought he was bang on. Changing social security and health care so that the power and control rests with the individual - check.

What I didn’t like was the laundry list of spending initiatives. New community health centers, Pell grants, more funding for education, etc. Expensive stuff. It’s wartime. It was a guns and butter speech, and in an era of big deficits and increasing military responsibiities I don’t think that’s sustainable.

50

I agree. But Bush even puts this old dichotomy on its head by not only promising both guns and butter, but tax cuts to boot. This should scare the wits out of fiscal conservatives and anyone who wants to grow the economy, create jobs, and prevent the next ruinous cycle of inflation, recession and depression.

51

Exactly. Its debatable which is scarier…Bush re-elected or Kerry as president. Right now in my own mind its a finely balanced toss up with equal fright on both sides.

-XT

52

And if there were a real conservative running, I’d be supporting him on here. The problem is, all of Bush’s faults, Kerry has in spades. His platform contains FAR more spending than Bush’s. But what’s really scary about Kerry is that he wants to, in his own words, “Re-regulate business”. Regulation is one of the huge hidden expenses of the economy. We need less regulation, not more. Kerry is a big-government Liberal. He’s Bush multiplied twice over.

Then there is the problem of his constituency. If he gets into power it will be because of groups like MoveOn, labor unions, trial lawyers, etc. He’s going to have a lot of pressure on him to govern from the left. And since that’s his inclination anyway, I expect that’s exactly what he’d try to do.

On the other hand, there is a good argument to be made that the way you slow down government spending is to split the executive and legislative branches between parties so that they fight with each other and accomplish nothing. Kerry will want to raise taxes. The Republicans in Congress won’t let him. Spending initiatives will be DOA. Etc. Remember when Bill Clinton was first elected? He loaded up his administration with ideologues and planned to implment a laundry list of left-wing ideas. After being shot down for two years, he gave up and governed from the center. Very well, I might add. Unfortunately, John Kerry is no Bill Clinton. As a politician, he’s not fit to shine Bill Clinton’s shoes.

But there’s an overwhelming issue in this election, and that’s the war on terror. Can there be any doubt whatsoever that if Bush loses the election it will be seen as a repudiation of the U.S.? Can there be any doubt that al-Qaida types will be shooting guns into the air in celebration? Kerry’s reputation as a waffler without a spine is well known amongst al-Qaida types as well, and they’ll put the heat on him. That means more violence, more instability in Iraq, and a lot of pushbacks by governments like Syria, Iran, and maybe even Pakistan. Now, maybe Kerry would rise to the occasion and show a steel spine, but Bush is already doing that.

53

Let me answer a question with a question: Can there be any doubt that George Bush is exactly what Al Qaeda needs to be successful in fomenting worldwide Jihad against the West?

Without a reactionary, go-it-alone cowboy whose only tool is the hammer of overwhelming force and occupation, Al Qaeda has nothing to rail against and direct the anger of Muslim extremists. Bush is the perfect foil to their plan, and you can be sure there will lots of guns fired triumphantly into the air if he is re-elected.

You must stop seeing Al Qaeda as a conventional enemy who does things out of a narrow self-interest. They are religoeus zealots who know that the more violence they can cause to be brought against Muslims, the stronger their cause becomes, and the sooner Western influence can be ejected from the Middle East and Islamic Asia. They are willing to martyr millions of Muslims if it means they can finally bring about the all-out holy war with the West they see as necessary to achieve their objectives.

Terrorism is the modern Hydra that will not be slain by wielding the sword alone. It will require an ability to build an international consensus against the Islamic extremeists and forge a true coalition with diplomatic and economic tools that will, in the long run, be far more effective than military force alone.

George Bush has demonstrated how woefully lacking he is in diplomatic skills which will be necessary to free the world of the scourge of terrorism. John Kerry has the vision and wisdom to know that a unilateral, military response alone will only fan the flames of terrorism, and John Kerry is the only candidate that can bring about the international cooperation that will be required before terrorism can be significantly diminished.

54

:confused:

Where were we using ‘overwhelming force’ and ‘occupation’ on 10 September 2001? How about before the USS Cole attack? Khobar Towers? African Embassies? The first WTC attacks? It seems to me that Al Queda (and the larger problem of Islamist terrorism) were doing just fine before GW came into office.

55

Gee, you don’t suppose you had anything to do with the Republicans focusing their white-hot rage on ousting Bill Clinton, and labelling anything action he took against Al Qaeda, “wagging the dog” ? Your party weakened the Presidency for purely partisan politics at exactly the time our resources should have been focussed elsewhere. There is plenty of blame for the rise of terrorism to go around, and certainly some of it falls on Democrats, but only a partisan blinded by selfish politics can deny that the whole Whitewater/Monica witchhunt contributed to the vacuum that allowed Al Qaeda to gain strength.

56

That should read, “Gee, you don’t suppose **it ** had anything to do with the Republicans focusing their white-hot rage on ousting Bill Clinton”

57

For the record, I had very little influence on GOP strategy throughout the Nineties. I fear that lack of influence continues to this day. Regardless, Al Queda was thriving throughout the Nineties (I certainly don’t blame Clinton; I blame the terrorists. Try it sometime!), when our response was, uh, a bit more ‘subdued’. Even without Ali Bushco and the 40 Thieves running things, Al Queda wasn’t hurting for recruits.

58

Fear Itself: What Brutus meant is that al-Qaida has been at war with the west for a long time before Bush took power. It took 9/11 for the U.S. to fight back. That’s the only difference.

Fundamentally, your argument is one of appeasement. If only we all shrink back a little, try to get along, and be more understanding, we can all go back to worrying about our stocks and movies and TV shows, and pretend nothing happened.

In fact, we are at war. And by ‘we’ I mean the entire civilization. There is a major clash of ideology going on. This isn’t about where the troops are stationed. France has done nothing but accomodate and appease the Arab world for years, and look where it got them.

Pulling back is not an option. The terrorism genie isn’t going back into the bottle. Now the only thing we can do is take away their state sponsorship and refume the twenty some failed states in the middle east so that their people have hope. This isn’t some tiny police action against bunch of crazies in the hills of Afghanistan.

There is a stark choice in this election. Kerry says the war is primarily a police and intelligence matter. Bush says it’s a war against an ideology of Islamist Extremism, which is rising up out of the middle east in a violent way. One of them is right, and the other is wrong, and which way we choose is going to affect world affairs for at least the rest of our lives. Now, I fully expect that you disagree with my choice, but that’s fine. But compared to the sheer weight of this issue, the other stuff has to necessarily fall in importance.

59

So, if contest were Bush v. Clinton, you’d vote for Clinton? Color me skeptical. :slight_smile:

Yes, I doubt it immensely. It will be seen as a repudiation of George Bush. It will probably be seen as a repuduation of the Iraq War. But the American people repudiating America!? Can I remind you that George Bush is not the U.S.? He’s not the Sun King - "“L’etat, c’est moi!”. He works for the electorate, not the reverse.

60

I argued nothing of the sort, although I can see why it is useful to your politics to portay my position as such. Military options are an important part of the appropriate response to Al Qaeda, but they are neither the most important, nor the most effective. The use of economic and diplomatic pressure, skillfully applied by a true international coalition, will ultimately be far more successful than all the tanks, planes and bombs you could ever hope to array against Al Qaeda. The bigger the military response, the faster and stronger Al Qaeda grows.

I never said that simply “understanding” Al Qaeda will defeat them, and neither has John Kerry. Understanding our allies, gaining their trust and cooperation, and broadening the variety of tools in our toolbox is the only way to construct a world which provides no haven or support for terrorists. Brute force alone is doomed to failure, and places millions at risk. The Bush reactionary approach to dealing with Al Qaeda is less about diminishing the threat and more about appealing to his political base, which is hungry for revenge. Bush is using fear to manipulate the electorate, and is less concerned with reducing the threat than maintaining his grip on the power.