Thursday, September 02, 2004
Bush's speech
I'll have more to say when I have some time to read the transcripts, but my initial reaction is one of relief ... after last night's Miller/Cheney mean-team performance Bush needed a home run, but all he could come up with was a bloop single.
The speech lasted well over an hour. Despite its length, he had almost nothing to say about his domestic accomplishments over the last 3 1/2 years. His stated plans for the next four years consisted mainly of ideas that have been floating around for years, many of them even from before his inauguration in 2001. His plan for privatizing Social Security, for example, is little changed, and still a fiscal impossibility. He spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the Middle East, mostly looking through glasses so rose-colored as to be opaque. He managed to get in ten minutes or so of Kerry-bashing, featuring the same lies his surrogates have been spouting for months, all of which have long-since been discredited.
It was probably inspiring for Bush's base but, in the speech's lack of realistic vision, its paucity of accomplishment, and its mean-spiritedness, I don't think it did a thing to decide the undecided.
To mix my sports metaphors, the ball is now back in John Kerry's court.
The speech lasted well over an hour. Despite its length, he had almost nothing to say about his domestic accomplishments over the last 3 1/2 years. His stated plans for the next four years consisted mainly of ideas that have been floating around for years, many of them even from before his inauguration in 2001. His plan for privatizing Social Security, for example, is little changed, and still a fiscal impossibility. He spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the Middle East, mostly looking through glasses so rose-colored as to be opaque. He managed to get in ten minutes or so of Kerry-bashing, featuring the same lies his surrogates have been spouting for months, all of which have long-since been discredited.
It was probably inspiring for Bush's base but, in the speech's lack of realistic vision, its paucity of accomplishment, and its mean-spiritedness, I don't think it did a thing to decide the undecided.
To mix my sports metaphors, the ball is now back in John Kerry's court.
