Truth - Al Franken [26]
George W. Bush was ready to deliver.
At Madison Square Garden, President Bush strode purposefully to the podium, a podium on which the presidential seal partially obscured a semi-subliminal cross. His brow was furrowed. Not in confusion, as in the debates. No, it was furrowed with steely resolve. True to form, the President made no apologies for his inaction before 9/11. Rather, he called the nation’s attention to the attitude he adopted immediately after:
Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes.
He displayed his light touch:
Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called “walking.”
In Minnesota, we call it “a swagger.” In New York, they call it “being an asshole.” That’s the difference between Minnesota and New York. And Texas.
He walked—or swaggered—his audience through the horror of 9/11 one more time, and darkly hinted at the possibility of future attacks if America were to make the wrong choice:
If America shows uncertainty or weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.
And then he hit the gusher—the supreme confidence in himself and his country, a confidence so blindingly bright that it could lift the spirits of a cowering nation. A nation cowering because of the previous speakers. He ended on a note so uplifting that if I didn’t know anything about him, it would have made me think he was fantastic:
Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America and tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed.
Now we go forward, grateful for our freedom, faithful to our cause, and confident in the future of the greatest nation on earth.
The crowd went nuts. And with good reason. Before them stood, not just a politician with a great speechwriter, but a leader, a man’s man who had displayed the fortitude, the iron will, the unyielding resolve necessary to deliver the speech exactly as written.
The speech was the final shrink-wrapping on the packaging that had been chosen over eggies at Karl Rove’s Breakfast Group nearly eighteen months before: The man who had shrunk from duty in Vietnam, who had been asleep at the wheel from January 20 through 9:12 A.M. on September 11, 2001, who had lied us into a disastrous, unnecessary war and simultaneously failed to create jobs despite a series of unprecedented wartime tax cuts for the rich that were driving us deeper and deeper into debt—this man had become Resolute Man, a superhero whose one defining characteristic was his unyielding commitment to appearing resolute.
But on its own, it wasn’t enough. Seeming resolute would only take Bush halfway there. For Bush to be elected once and for all, the GOP and the right-wing media would have to package his opponent as well. Through smears, lies, and unceasing attacks, they would have to define him as a weakling, as a coward—as a spineless wimp who would get us all killed.
They would have to turn a war hero into a flip-flopper.
4 How Bush Won:
Smear
Although I am writing this chapter with John and Teresa Heinz Kerry literally looking over my shoulder, and although John and Teresa are financing the research, publication, and bulk-buying of this book with the $15 million left over from the campaign, this chapter is in no way a definitive defense of John Kerry’s run for the White House.
Yes, I will be debunking a few of the most outrageous and often slanderous charges that were leveled against the senator during the 2004 election. But I won’t make excuses for what was at best an excellent campaign, but one that not infrequently wandered into a fog of vagueness and abstraction.
Hold on. John wants to write something about the leftover $15 million.
This is John Kerry. First of all, if