Click here for info on the Print Journal (and to purchase your copy)!

9.3.04

On George Bush’s Bullshit Speech, the Lost Ways of John Kerry, and the Stupidity of Zell Miller

By Mark Grueter

-------------------------------------

It’s early Friday morning and most pundits are insisting that Bush gave a “great” acceptance speech, an “A+,” “his best speech ever.” And I fear we won’t soon hear the end of it. The fact that the oration was boring, tedious, demagogic, offensive, full of distortions and cheap ploys is irrelevant. Speeches are evaluated based on how well the pundits believe they’ll go over with the fools who vote.

Obviously, when the pundits say Bush delivered “a great speech,” they mean the spectacle was politically effective, not that it was truthful or insightful or thoughtful. In other words, “a great speech” is one that successfully manipulates or propagandizes to promote certain causes. Bush’s speechwriters chose seemingly agreeable language to deliver a series of sharply partisan (and I think twisted) messages, and that’s why it was “great” – not because it was actually great.

Yes, Bush and his ventriloquist Karl Rove did not disappoint, but there are far too many lies, exaggerations and phony platitudes to debunk in a single reaction piece. I will, however, break a few of them down. Certainly, one of the more shameless moments occurred when the President pretended to be on the verge of tears while discussing 9-11, which obviously made him look vulnerable and sympathetic to those incapable of detecting the gimmick.

Bush repeatedly asserted that “nothing will hold us back” which to me meant that he believes the events of September 11th ‘held’ his agenda ‘back.’ The comment is without shame because it’s a coy way of blaming his failures with respect to the economy on 9-11. Now, in terms of foreign policy, it is very reasonable to deduce the opposite: that 9-11 is what allowed his agenda to unfold. “Nothing will hold us back” is Bush’s way of taunting liberals: if you thought the first four years of my administration were egregiously bad, just wait until nothing holds us back.

Below is a list of a few things in Bush’s speech I found to be particularly wrongheaded and/or hypocritical:

1) While pretending to stand up for doctors over them greedy trial lawyers, Bush argued that “Doctors and patients should make the decisions, not the politicians.” Obviously, if he really believed that, he would not favor government intervention in regards to abortion. But we’re just getting warmed up…

2) On many of the very issues Americans are headed in the wrong directions, Bush proposes to hit the gas pedal. One example: He touts a proposal to significantly increase funding for job training programs and community colleges. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of shop class. I need to hear more cheesy advertisements on behalf of high school dropouts finally pulling themselves out of the doldrums at the University of Phoenix or The Chubb Institute like I need a hole in my head. Bush wants America to be a nation of tradesmen and specialists, each American with his or her own “skill,” sort of like the 19th century I guess. He wants bright, creative people to suppress their talent and individualism and instead focus on business, graft, and providing all those services that the bourgeois and aristocratic classes yearn for.

Later in the speech, Bush confessed a preference for the subjects of math and science (and a promise to bolster funding for curriculums that emphasize those subjects) over, well, programs that place a higher value on creativity, like liberal arts and music. It is my belief that Americans are already grotesquely under-employed (if employed at all) and now I have to stomach Bush’s aspirations for a nation of drones and technocrats?

3) Gore Vidal used to refer to the Democratic and Republican Parties collectively as the “Property Party” and on Thursday night, Bush did his part to reinforce the label. Bush spoke warmly of his desire to create an “ownership society” - bragging that home ownership in America is at an all time high. Why this is necessarily something to beam about I’m not quite sure. And even if we assume the veracity of the boast, is it not meaningless when considered alongside realities like declining real wages/standards of living, increased unemployment, and job loss?

Republicans envision a dull, homogenous society, where we all own nice, suburban houses complete with manicured lawns and dogs and fake-polite neighbors and tits. People who choose not to “own” or those who choose to lead ‘alternative’ lifestyles in general are necessarily excluded from Bush’s society, on an array of issues.

4) Bush said, “freedom is God’s gift to the world.” That, of course, does not make the least bit of sense. Freedom was and is something people of many beliefs and non-beliefs have fought and continue to fight for. But let us take his word for it, just for a moment and just for the sake of discussion. If “God” gave us freedom and He is all-powerful then who gave us tyranny, oppression, torture, rape, murder and genocide? And if God didn’t give those “gifts” to us then why would The Omnipotent One allow those things to flourish? If Bush were such a big believer in science (recall his desire to boost funding for the subject) he wouldn’t so enthusiastically subscribe to religious beliefs, nor would he so rigorously oppose the regulation of industry. Again, Bush inflicts the “values” of his childish theology upon the rest of us.

5) In economics, any graduated tax is referred to as a “progressive” tax (such as our income tax in the US). Any tax which taxes all income earners at the same rate (what conservative wish for) is considered a “regressive” tax. Yet, on Thursday night, Bush asserted an oxymoron on the subject. He said that those who support a graduated income tax are engaging in the “politics of the past,” while his attempts to drastically cut taxes for the rich – while simultaneously shifting the burden to the poor - represent the politics of the future. With arguments like this one, the Republicans are reckless and reveal themselves to feel, perhaps correctly, like they can get away with saying just about anything.

And when Bush wasn’t offensive in his speech, he was his usual bland and unspecific self. I heard one commentator earnestly describe the speech as “Churchillian.” But how difficult is it to steal the words and style of somebody else? Churchill was exceptional because he cultivated his own style; nobody will ever try to emulate the “Bushian” style outside an act of parody. If Bush was Churchillian on Thursday night, then he was simply a plagiarist, and not a very good one at that.

* * *

Johns Edwards and Kerry, in a rushed and somewhat desperate attempt to prevent the Bush campaign from taking flight, immediately followed Bush’s speech with their own live event in Ohio. Unfortunately, the two Democratic candidates were again lackluster. I was rooting for them - I really was - but any objective viewer will tell you it was another blown opportunity. We were all waiting, begging for something to happen, hoping Kerry would get tough and get specific, but just as it seemed he might be on the verge of breaking out, nothing happened. He reverted back to his talking points. The two men began the event by needlessly touting each other’s biographies (again). Neither had prepared speeches and so lines were repeated, and both men rambled. The Edwards/Kerry team needs new speechwriters and new material, fast.

Kerry won the Democratic debates by revealing his thorough knowledge of policy details and by using direct, commanding language. But somewhere along the way, he lost his edge. If he is to win this election, he’ll have to step it up big time, like he did in January against Dean, and like he did back in 1996 against Bill Weld. If he continues on his current path, he will lose. He needs to fight; he needs to attack. But he’s afraid because his advisors and the pollsters say that Americans hate negative politics and they hate when candidates “attack” one another.

Nonsense. Americans may say they disapprove of “negative politics,” but I don’t think they do when it comes right down to it. Do Americans really vote based on who “attacks” the other candidate the least? Of course not. And where does one draw a line between an attack and a simple comparison of positions? Kerry should stop being cautious and simply follow his conscience (assuming for the purposes of discussion he has one) and his intelligence. He needs to confront the attacks levied against him by providing detailed explanations for why those attacks are wrong. Feigning superiority to it all has not done him any good.

* * *

On Wednesday night, the simpleton Zell Miller reared his ugly head in order to yell at all the intellectuals and traitors in the Democratic Party. “My family is more important than my party,” the Senator stupidly declared before wondering why the Democratic Party – his party - has yet to completely surrender to the foreign policy agenda of the Republicans. The problem with Miller’s speech wasn’t that it was “too angry” as we are pedantically told, it was that the substance was so blatantly idiotic. Miller essentially complained about the fact that we don’t live in a one-party, totalitarian state.

Miller painted a colorless and badly confused picture of history where all enemies of the United States, perceived and actual, are conflated into one, easily digestible force. No nuance, no complexity, the British are the Nazis, the Communists are the Islamic fundamentalists. And, of course, there is no difference between those who attacked America on 9-11 and Saddam Hussein.

His wandering eyes, tucked into the back of his head, gives him the look of a crazed blind man; this embittered, ignorant southerner insisted that God is “not indifferent” to America. In other words, he claims to know that God favors America and Americans over everyone else in the world. I wonder if anything could be more deluded or evil that that.

After his dismal speech, a hostile Miller appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and threatened Matthews several times. This was not expected. Asked by Matthews to explain if he really believed John Kerry favored only the use of “spitballs” to defend America (as Miller alleged during his speech), Miller claimed that the line was a “metaphor.” Matthews then appropriately asked what it was a metaphor for and Miller, since he was obviously incapable of providing a rational explanation said the following to the Hardball host: “get outta my face!”

Lynn Cheney took the stage after Miller and tried to soften her husband’s ghoulish public image. She informed us that, back when they were sweethearts in high school, Dick wasn’t one of the boys who drove his car back and forth between the two Root Beer shops in their small, Wyoming town. Does anyone know what that was supposed to mean, by the way, other than that Ms. Cheney imagined this a noble exercise of principled restraint?

According to Dick Cheney, Wednesday night’s closer, everything is great in America. Education, the economy and health care are better than they’ve ever been and George W. Bush is a great president. Indeed, the Vice President falsely stated many things, including the charge that Kerry only believes in using military force when the United States is attacked. Just one example: Slobodan Milosevic never attacked us, but John Kerry fully supported the U.S.-led NATO offensive against the Serbs in both 1995 and 1998.

The speeches given earlier in the week by more moderate Republicans were almost as bad. But it’s important to focus on the real face of the GOP and the real power brokers - a party that is best represented by the likes of the President himself and – ironically – the Democrat Zell Miller, and not naïve or opportunistic crowd pleasers like Arnold, McCain and Rudy.

---------------------------------------

Mark Grueter is a writer living in New York City. He can be contacted here.

© 2004 Me Three