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Jewish World Review August 7, 2000/ 6 Menachem-Av, 5760

Wesley Pruden

Wes Pruden
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Consumer Reports


After insulin shock,
an authentic rouser


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- PHILADELPHIA | All we wanted was to get out of Dodge in time. One more day and we thought we would be joining Jerry Ford in hospital. We were about to go into insulin shock.

How much more sugar could a warm body take? Then George W. Bush, who had signaled all week that he saw himself as therapist-in-chief, the healer with a purpose, the great uniter, who aspires not to be a happy warrior but a cheerful conciliator, threw us a Nolan Ryan curve ball.

Reporters had been told at midafternoon that he would try to heal the "wounds" opened on Wednesday night by Dick Cheney. The most memorable line would be something like this: "We will use these good times for great goals. We will confront the hard issues, threats to our national security, threats to our health and retirement security before the challenges of our time become crises for our children. And we will extend the promise of prosperity to every forgotten corner of this country."

Nice enough words. But words without real specifics, and above all words without the fire and thunder, words without the promise of blood and grit that everybody here was waiting to hear.

But instead we got the rouser nobody expected, demonstrating that he really is a chip off the old block, and if last night's acceptance speech — fully the equal of his old man's tour de force at New Orleans 12 years ago — is an example of what is to come, he is Al Gore's worst bad dream after all.

Almost from the moment he began, with a tribute to the founding fathers (Ben Franklin was here, Thomas Jefferson was here, and of course George Washington — or as his friends called him, George W."), it was clear that this would be a long, long night for Al and his mentor in the White House.

Dick Cheney had got the task on Wednesday night of serving up a little red meat, but George W. saved some of the reddest for himself.

"Clinton-Gore," he said, have "coasted through prosperity," and he noted what some of us have been saying for years, that the path of least resistance is all downhill, and Bill Clinton, Al Gore and their friends are the greatest of all the downhill racers.

Paying tribute to his father's generation, arguably (and without persuasive disputation) the best generation since the cream of North and South fought out the inevitable in the Civil War, he conceded what the Children's Hour at the White House never could, that "our generation" has the opportunity to reclaim the values that would demonstrate that it had grown up before it grows old.

If anyone doubts that this is a different party, he should calibrate the applause lines. When George W. paid tribute to Martin Luther King and the civil-rights revolution, the applause from the floor roared back in affirmation. When he decried "the soft bigotry of low expectations," the easy racism of the opportunistic rabble-rousers on the left, the applause was equally deafening.

The delegates who had despaired of seeing and hearing anything beyond the sugar and spice that had been the diet of this convention could hardly believe what they were hearing. Finally there was all the mocking of Al Gore than even the most hardened of delegates could want (the only thing the man who leads the party of FDR has to offer is fear itself").

There were one or two false notes. What could he have meant when he said: "I don't have a lot of things that come with Washington experience. I don't have enemies to fight. And I have no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years. I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect."

Can he really believe that? That he has no Washington enemies to fight? That he has no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years?

Washington is full of people who are sharpening knives this morning against the day he arrives, who can't wait to cut his throat. Can the Texans around him be so naive as to think they can transform the angry partisan culture of the nation's politics to ladies' tea-room gentility in the few weeks left between now and November 8?

George W. has the touch of the old-time Methodist revivalist (the best there ever were), testifying without apology to the ACLU or anyone else to "grace, I've seen it; peace, I've felt it, and forgiveness, I've needed it."

When he vowed that a president himself must be responsible for his own behavior, and promised that as president he would put his hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office, "so help me G-d," the delegates to this convention roared in affirmation, satisfied at last that this was worth the trip to Philadelphia.


JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Up

08/02/00: When it gets hard not to get a little giddy
07/31/00: George W.'s legions of summer soldiers
07/26/00: He's set a surprise --- or a trap for himself
07/24/00: How do you serve a turkey in August?
07/19/00: Would Hillary sling a lie about a slur?
07/17/00: Process, not peace, at a Velveeta summit
07/12/00: The Texas two-step, a nudge and a wink
07/10/00: The Great Mentioner and his busy season
07/05/00: No Mexican standoff in these results
07/03/00: Denting a few egos in the U.S. Senate
06/28/00: Bureaucracy amok! Punctuation in peril!
06/26/00: The water torture of American resolve
06/21/00: The happy hangman is a busy hangman
06/19/00: Dick Gephardt finds a Dixie dreamboat
06/14/00: Taking a byte out of innovation
06/12/00: 'Go away, little boy, you're bothering us'
06/07/00: When a little envy is painful to watch
06/05/00: Fire and thunder, bubble and squeak
05/31/00: South of the border, politics is pepper
05/26/00: Running out of luck with home folks
05/24/00: The heart says no, but the head says yes
05/22/00: A fine opportunity to set an example
05/17/00: The Sunday school for Republicans
05/15/00: Hillary's surrogate for telling tall tales
05/10/00: Listening to the voice of an authentic man
05/08/00: First a lot of bluster, then the retreat
05/02/00: Good news for Rudy, bad news for Hillary
04/28/00: The long goodbye to Elian's boyhood
04/25/00: Spooked by Castro, Bubba blinks
04/14/00: One flag down and two memorials to go
04/11/00: Consistency finds a jewel in Janet Reno
04/07/00: Here's the good word (and it's in English)
04/04/00: When bureaucrats mock the courts
03/28/00: How Hollywood sets the virtual table
03/24/00: Dissing a president can ruin a whole day
03/20/00: When shame begets the painful insult
03/14/00: The risky business of making an apology
03/10/00: The pouters bugging a weary John McCain
03/07/00: When all good things (sob) come to an end

© 2000 Wes Pruden