Rhetoric, Lies, and Videotape, Day One at the Republican National Convention

By Anthony Wade

In my preview of the Republican National Convention I warned about the impending rhetoric that would be coming for these four days. I was unprepared for the outright lies however. Mixed throughout these, were vignettes of GW Bush, pimping his plan for America over the next four years. They of course did not address why it took him four years to come up with a plan. Lets take a look at day one.

Rhetoric

There were talking points throughout all of the speeches tonight, so much so, that it seemed that the same speechwriter wrote all of the speeches. The salient points the GOP was pushing tonight were:

            We have to fight this war

            The wars we have had in the past four years were necessary because of 911

            Bush has not wavered or flinched

            John Kerry is a dangerous flip-flopper

            Steady leadership should be the core of each voter's decision

If you follow the points, they form a coherent strategy the GOP has outline to convince voters to vote for Bush. Every speaker stayed to this message. It was essentially the same speech, over and over again. Point one is that we have to fight this war. Bush must convince everyone that this is gospel truth because otherwise he has nothing to run on. The fact is that we do not have to fight this war. We have to fight the terrorists but the truth is that the war in Afghanistan had little to do with terrorists and Bush had planned to invade Afghanistan months before 911. We ran out of that country too quickly and now the warlords and Taliban are back in control of portions of the country. The war in Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism. Former Bush administration officials have admitted that Bush came into office with Saddam's removal as his top priority, 911 just provided a reasonable excuse.

The second point was that both wars were a necessary response to 911. Having no shame, the republicans trotted out widows of 911 victims to shill for Bush. Then, proving they can have some Hollywood clout, Ron Silver gave a near frantic plea for Bush, shouting, "we will never forget, forgive or excuse. This is why we HAD TO RESPOND!!!"  Respond to whom, Mr. Silver? This is at the heart of what is wrong with the logic of the GOP. The official story says that Osama bin Laden, from a cave in Afghanistan, orchestrated 911 by using 19 hijackers to fly four planes into US landmarks. None of the 19 hijackers were Afghani, or Iraqi. Osama himself was a Saudi. So how did we pick these two countries to blow up? Well, Afghanistan was chosen because they harbored bin Laden. That premise is fair enough but why then did Bush wait two months before pursuing him? More importantly, why did Bush give the Taliban 43 million dollars just a year earlier, when they were still harboring bin Laden? Lastly on Afghanistan, why did we give up on bin Laden so quickly? We essentially blew up the country, and left to pursue Iraq. Realizing that Bush needed Saddam to be the new boogeyman, he responded to a question about bin Laden as follows, "I don't really think about him much anymore." So, Bush in his steady leadership chose to pursue bin Laden in Afghanistan by blowing up the country and when he wanted to go after Saddam, essentially forgot about the man he claims to be responsible for 911. How in the world is that steady leadership? As for Iraq, there is no ambiguity. Saddam led a secular society, which was despised, by bin Laden. They never worked together, no matter how many fairy tales Cheney would have you believe. Saddam also had nothing to do with 911, as the republican-led commission concluded as well. So, if we are fighting the war on terror as a response to 911, why exactly have we blown up Iraq? Ahh, that's right he had weapons of mass destruction. You remember that don't you? Bush and his cohorts told us over and over again how many weapons, how many liters of this and gallons of that. Then guess what? No WMD. Does this matter to anyone anymore? The President of the United States looked us all in the eye for months and lied to us. Realizing this point needs to be spun into anything else than what it is, we saw tonight how Karl Rove wants the discussion to go.

            "Whether Saddam had WMD or not, he would have acquired them again."

Now, even if you want to forget that the president lied to start his war, this excuse from John McCain is quite lame. First of all, we only know that Saddam had the WMD at one point because we sold them to him in his war against Iran. So, unless we were going to sell them to him again, to say we had to remove him because he would have "acquired them again", is quite ludicrous. Is that the "Bush Doctrine" that Guliani was trumpeting all night? That anyone who "may acquire" WMD needs to be removed and we need to go to war? Is that the type of "steady leadership" we want? The bottom line is that the administration's official story on 911 is that al Qaeda and bin Laden were responsible and this President's response was to blow up two countries that had very little to do with 911 itself. No, we do not have to fight these wars.

The third talking point is that Bush has not wavered, nor flinched, even in the light of popularity. This line of reasoning is disingenuous at best, however it is honest. Bush has not wavered and that is central to the problem. It is not in light of popularity though; it is in the light of common sense. Bush sold us this war based on WMD and now he must realize that was an error. What is Bush's response? That he would do it all again. That is being unwavering in the light of common sense. In an interview when asked about the fact that he sold the war on WMD and now there were none to be found, Bush's response was "so what's the difference?" When he first realized that WMD were not going to be found, the rhetoric changed to Saddam had the capability of making WMD related programs, not actual WMD. This is just one lie morphing into others as the truth comes to light and the fact that the GOP chose to celebrate that as being "unwavering" tells you all you really need to know. The bottom line is Bush declared a "war on terror" after 911, as he should have, and then proceeded to attack whomever he wished while handing out billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to his buddies. The lack of mention of Iraq by name tonight was striking. The GOP desperately wants you to believe the war on terror, encompasses the war on Iraq when in reality they have nothing to do with each other.

In opposition to the steady leadership, the GOP presented John Kerry as a dangerous flip-flopper in talking point number four. They prop up Bush as steadfast and Kerry as a man who changes his mind with the wind. In Boston, the democrats took the high road and chose to not bash Bush. Obviously the GOP decided to take the opposite track. Every speaker was deriding Kerry at any chance they could get. Here are the lowlights:

            "Kerry was against the war and for it" - Dennis Hastert

Guliani was outright vicious in his unrelenting attack on John Kerry. He mocked Kerry on his stance on the Gulf War. He scorned him about his now infamous quote about voting for the 87 billion before voting against it. Then to show how low he can go, Rudy let loose with:

This is going to be the tact of the GOP over the next 64 days. The bottom line is that Bush has flipped his position far more than Kerry can ever dream of. See this link for proof: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263

For what I hope is the last time, Kerry is guilty of a poor choice of words, but that 87 billion issue comes down to this:

The GOP cannot run on issues because they have none. They are reduced to spending their convention trying to tear down Kerry, as opposed to building Bush up. The bottom line is Kerry chose to go to Vietnam and Bush went AWOL. Kerry spent his adult life serving this country in the Senate while Bush was making money through insider trading and shadowy business ventures, some of which were funded by the Saudis. When you truly stand up the two candidates against each other, there is no comparison. So, they need to paint Kerry as a flip-flopper and Bush as unwavering. Please.

To wrap up the theme, the fifth point is that at the core of your vote this year should be leadership. This makes sense if you assume that the GOP has done a credible job of establishing Bush as steady and Kerry as a flip-flopper. The real motivation for pushing this point however is that there is nothing tangible for a voter to hold onto when considering a vote for Bush. Therefore they have to create this image, the Bush Brand. Karl Rove is brilliant at this. If you forgot, in 2000, the Bush Brand was that he was a uniter not a divider and a compassionate conservative. Of course the reality is that Bush has been extremely divisive and there is nothing compassionate or conservative about him. They want you to think going into the polls that Bush is a steady leader and we are living in unsafe times. They cannot win otherwise. They cannot concentrate on the economy because it is in the tank and not recovering. They cannot talk about the environment because he has gutted all former regulations. They cannot talk about education because he has left no child behind unfunded. They cannot talk about jobs, because Bush has presided over the first net loss of jobs since the Great Depression. They cannot talk about healthcare because there are 45 million Americans without it now. If you think about any of these crucial issues to your life, you must vote Kerry. If you are afraid though, you may vote for Bush. That is their game plan. Even McCain made it a point tonight to say, "We are safer than we were on 911, BUT WE ARE NOT SAFE". Well gosh, if we are not safe, maybe I should vote for the guy who is steady and unwavering. I don't think so.

Lies

It is difficult to separate out what is rhetoric and what is an outright lie. Here are the most glaring:

Dennis Hastert - Stated that Kerry intends on raising taxes on the job creators of America. This is an absolute lie. Kerry wants to end the handouts to the millionaires of this country. His plan is to only rollback the tax breaks on the top 1%, which are those earning more than 1.2 million dollars per year. That is not the job creators of this country. That is not the small business owners of America. To pretend it is, is a lie.

Bernard Kerik - Stated that today we live in a safer world, than on 911. Others also repeated this lie tonight. What makes it a lie is that terrorism prior to 911 was represented by a handful of incidents over a period of decades, no matter how horrific. Today, terror is a daily event. You can download a program to your computer to let you know the terror color of the day. No significant al Qaeda members have been caught nor prosecuted. In the three years since 911, the terror alert has never gone below the elevated level, which states a "significant risk of terrorist attacks". How in the world does that make us safer? Because we blew up Afghanistan? Bin Laden and al Qaeda may have been inconvenienced to have to find another country, but they are still out there. Iraq? Without WMD, they never were a threat. The Gulf War crippled the country and ten years of sanctions decimated it. Removing Hussein does not make us "safer". This is a lie.

Ron Silver - Let this whopper go, "history shows that we are not imperialists". I am unsure what version of history Mr. Silver studied, but this country spent half of its existence as an imperialistic nation. I would hope this is not debatable; it is just a flat-out lie. By the way, when you blow up a country, install your own government, and take over their revenue (and lose a lot of it I might add) that looks, smells and IS imperialistic.

Rob Khuzami - This former Assistant US Attorney tried to downplay the Patriot Act. It is a lie to say that this law does not infringe on our liberties. Additionally, Mr. Khuzami now works for Deutsche Bank, who has been implicated in making a lot of money off the 911 tragedy through insider trading. Even though no charges were filed, it is interesting to note that CIA Executive Director Buzzy Krongard used to manage the exact firm that placed these very rare "put options" prior to 911 that raked in millions.

Lindsey Graham - Stated that there would be "no class warfare in this hall tonight". Now, the statement is not a lie, it is nonsense. Democrats feel that the rich should pay more than the poor in taxes. Republicans disagree and when we try to have a rational debate about it, the GOP shouts, CLASS WARFARE! It is the term that is a lie. It is not class warfare to want to roll back the tax cuts on the top 1% of this country, it is common sense.

John McCain - On the Iraq War, stated the war was "necessary, achievable, and noble". I am sorry John but all three are lies. There was nothing necessary about the Iraq War. There were no WMD and Saddam had nothing to do with 911. This war is also not achievable. Even the newborn republican Ron Silver had to admit on MSNBC later that the handling of the Iraq War has been "wretched". We were told that we would be in and out of Iraq and it would be paid for through their oil reserves. None of this has been true and we are going to be there for quite a long time according to experts. Lastly, there is nothing noble about this war. It has been brutal, oppressive and rife with problems. There is nothing noble about the deaths of 1000 American soldiers. There is nothing noble about the deaths of nearly 14,000 Iraqi civilians. There is nothing noble about the torture of men women and children. Nobility is not what jumps to mind when we hear about the rape of women and children in the Iraqi prisons by our troops or about hooking up electrodes to their genitals. Mr. McCain should know this as a former POW and I assume deep in his heart he must realize it. It is a shame that he has chosen to sell his soul to the man who represents everything he must despise. A man who would not stand up for his country and then went AWOL. A man who shouts "bring em on!" while troops are in harms way. A man who won't go to one soldier's funeral. I feel bad for McCain but he has chosen his path.

Rudy Guliani - Rudy had a lot to choose from but I will go with this little nugget, "Bush stood at Ground Zero and said that those who knocked down these buildings will hear from us. And they have heard from us, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Lybia. And is there no doubt that as long as GW Bush is our president, they will continue to hear from us" I know the GOP strategy is to lie, and repeat the lie often enough until it sticks but I must again state that the people who knocked down the buildings according to Bush, is al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden has not heard from us, in fact according to Bush now, he "does not think about him much". Afghanistan has heard from us, too bad they had nothing to do with 911. Iraq heard from us, too bad they had nothing to do with 911. Lybia dismantled their weapons programs because of the UN sanctions, which were threatening the country's economic viability, and Ghadhafi was concerned about being overthrown. It had nothing to do with the US efforts in other areas. He was well aware that the US was in for the long haul in Iraq and that Syria and Iran were next on the radar, not Lybia. Sorry Rudy, but the guys who knocked down those buildings have not heard from us at all. That is a lie.

Videotape

If you noticed from this article or if you saw day one live, there was no mention of anything having to do with this country, you know the US? It was all about terror, terror, terror, be afraid, 911, Bush is a steady leader, Kerry is a flip-flopper. Nothing about the economy, jobs, healthcare, education, the infrastructure or anything vaguely resembling this country. At least not from anyone who was speaking. Instead what we had were pre-fabricated vignettes of Bush, spouting one generality or another. The videotape was shown throughout the night, just to remind folks that Bush has some vague sense of a plan. Here are three such excerpts:

Now for some general observations"

Horrible Media Moment of the Night: Joe Scarborough on MSNBC criticizes Kerry for not responding immediately to the admission by Bush that the War on Terror is not winnable. Andrea Mitchell actually derides Kerry for answering while windsurfing, calling it a rich sport that won't play well with middle America. This is where people get these silly notions from. Now, people in middle America will feel contemptuous toward Kerry because he windsurfs. This is ridiculous. Instead of focusing on the story, which is that Bush said that the war was not winnable, they switch the focus to Kerry. This is what they did to Gore in 2000. We are in for a long election season.

 Ridiculous Statement of the Night: Bernard Kerik who praised Bush for having the "courage to fly and visit the troops on Thanksgiving". Perhaps Bernard missed the true story, which is that Bush flew with no notice to anyone, simply so he could pose for a photo-op with the soldiers. For the record, the turkey in the photo-op was fake. The soldiers enjoyed their rations as usual, the best that Halliburton can buy after their outlandish profit margin.

Understatement of the Night: John McCain stated that this war (Iraq), like all wars, will have their ups and downs. Uhmm, John, are you serious? I guess the 14,000 dead civilians would be a down moment? What about the 1000 dead soldiers, yep another down moment. I guess the mission-accomplished aircraft carrier might be an up moment? Yikes.

Contradiction of the Night: McCain goes out of his way to say that democrats and republicans all need to remember that we are all Americans and need to have this debate civilly. Then, the next speaker, Guliani, goes out of his way to ridicule and disparage Kerry in a most despicable fashion. A flip-flop for the GOP.

Amusing Moment, Wrapped in a Lie Moment: John McCain calls out Michael Moore as a "disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace." This caused quite an uproar and laugh from the crowd, because Moore was present. The lie however, is in the fact that McCain later admitted to not actually have seen the film. Too bad, since the scene he refers to does not exist. There is a five second clip of people doing ordinary things in Iraq, before the "shock and awe" began. It did not pretend to say that Hussein's Iraq was an "oasis of peace" but rather that it had an ordinary side to it. Bush would have you believe that every Iraqi citizen under Saddam was in prison, rape rooms, and torture chambers. That is a distortion. There was a "normal" day in Iraq before we came in, blew it up, and killed 14,000 civilians.

Most Accidental Honest Statement: John McCain stated, "war is an awful business". As an entire statement, this is correct. The more honest part of it though is that war is a business. Just look at the money being made off of this war. There was actually a convention held to discuss how to make money off of these wars by large corporations.

The Most Absurd Statement of the Night: Even worse than ridiculous, this statement is from Guliani who unleashed this, "no matter what happens this election, George W. Bush has already earned a place in history as a great American president." What??? For what? You do not become a great president by ruining the economy, not funding education, gutting the environment, blowing up two world countries, stripping us of civil liberties, and not catching any of the perpetrators of 911. That is a hell of a record.

Summary: This was only day one. What is striking to me is twofold. First are the faces of the Republican Party that are being put on display. We are seeing the moderate voices. When asked why we are not hearing from more of the GOP conservative core, the republicans tried to sell their party of one of inclusion, where everyone does not have to agree on everything. This is pure tripe of course. They cannot trot out the Tom Delays of the world because of their extremist positions. The fact of the matter is that Guliani may get the prime time spot to give the appearance of moderation, but it is the Tom Delays who decide policy. The GOP is not inclusive.

The second striking feature for me was the incredible harsh tone devoid of any reason why we should vote for Bush, besides the war. The speakers were downright mean in their dismissal of Kerry, mocking, and sarcastic. That is the true tone of the party I imagine, I just hope that people took notice.

As for the war, it is the only real selling point for Bush. On Thursday he will talk about some real issues facing you and I. He will smile for the camera and do his best folksy sounding voice he can muster. At the end of the day though Rove knows that the American people are not stupid. They are far worse off today than when Bush took office. The jobs are far less available and for far less money. Healthcare is through the roof and no one really thinks the solution is to take away our right to seek legal recourse when we have been wronged. Rove knows that people will see through this flextime scam and discover it is just a way for employers to take away their overtime pay. They will know at the end of the day that it is not a good thing to strip all regulations away from the environment. They will know all of these things and more.

No, the only way Rove knows that he can get your vote is to make sure you are as scared as possible. So he camps his convention a few miles from Ground Zero to remind you about 911. So he has widows from 911 speak at the convention. So he bombards you with imagery of our president standing on the rubble of the twin towers, hoping that what resonates is the fear we all experienced that day. Scared people are less likely to want change. They correlate the Iraq War and occupation to the war on terror even though there is absolutely no connection between the two. They want you to remember the feelings of terror, but not the man they told you who did it. Remember, Osama is "not thought of much anymore" by our commander in chief. He had bigger fish to fry and more lucrative contracts to hand out. You just stand there and be scared. Do what good little scared citizens do, vote for our steady leader who does not waver and watch out for anyone who flip-flops. Don't worry about your petty problems. Don't worry about jobs, education, healthcare, the infrastructure, or the environment. He has plans for all those; it's just too bad those plans are for Iraq.

I can't wait for day two. 

 Anthony Wade is co-administrator of a website devoted to educating the populace to the ongoing lies of President George W. Bush and seeking his removal from office. He is a 37-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites.  A Christian progressive, and professional counselor, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess.

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