RNC @ MSG: John McCain

John McCain’s address seemed kind of flat to me, like he couldn’t find his rhythm or his Viagra. Just seemed like he lacked energy. Wonder if that was because his assigned task was to speak on behalf of his one-time bitter rival from 2000?

Still, he did a decent job of advancing the ball, and got off some good lines – and one spectacular one.

In a time of deep distress at home, as tyranny strangled the aspirations to liberty of millions, and as war clouds gathered in the West and East, Franklin Delano Roosevelt accepted his party's nomination by observing:

’There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.’

The awful events of September 11, 2001 declared a war we were vaguely aware of, but hadn't really comprehended how near the threat was, and how terrible were the plans of our enemies.

It's a big thing, this war.

Well, “Sailor” may have denied having eloquence a couple grafs earlier, but that last line said so much with so little. It is a “big thing,” indeed, which is precisely what the other side refuses to acknowledge.

It's a fight between a just regard for human dignity and a malevolent force that defiles an honorable religion by disputing God's love for every soul on earth. It's a fight between right and wrong, good and evil.

And should our enemies acquire for their arsenal the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they seek, this war will become a much bigger thing.

So it is, whether we wished it or not, that we have come to the test of our generation, to our rendezvous with destiny.

There’s the tie-in with Iraq, as well as next-door neighbor Iran.

We are engaged in a hard struggle against a cruel and determined adversary. Our enemies have made clear the danger they pose to our security and to the very essence of our culture: liberty.

Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.

Like all wars, this one will have its ups and downs.

But we must fight. We must.

Target: Kerry’s irresolute pacifism. Salvo launched, target destroyed.

[A]ll Americans must share a resolve to see this war through to a just end. We must not be complacent at moments of success, and we must not despair over setbacks. We must learn from our mistakes, improve on our successes, and vanquish this unpardonable enemy.

If we do less, we will fail the one mission no American generation has ever failed: to provide to our children a stronger, better country than the one we were blessed to inherit.

Proper perspective and a recitation of the stakes, in four concise sentences. Very nice.

Remember how we felt when the serenity of a bright September morning was destroyed by a savage atrocity so hostile to all human virtue we could scarcely imagine any human being capable of it.

We were united. First, in sorrow and anger. Then in recognition we were attacked not for a wrong we had done, but for who we are a people united in a kinship of ideals, committed to the notion that the people are sovereign, not governments, not armies, not a pitiless, inhumane theocracy, not kings, mullahs or tyrants, but the people.

In that moment, we were not different races. We were not poor or rich. We were not Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. We were not two countries.

We were Americans.

Note the tense. Which side was it that broke ranks again after barely six months of this unity and resumed putting party over country? McCain didn’t even have to say it, it’s so obvious.
Here he looked like he was beginning to freelance, but he brought it back around to another haymaker point.

My friends in the Democratic Party and I'm fortunate to call many of them my friends assure us they share the conviction that winning the war against terrorism is our government's most important obligation. I don't doubt their sincerity. They emphasize that military action alone won't protect us, that this war has many fronts: in courts, financial institutions, in the shadowy world of intelligence, and in diplomacy. They stress that America needs the help of her friends to combat an evil that threatens us all, that our alliances are as important to victory as are our armies.

We agree.

And, as we've been a good friend to other countries in moments of shared perils, so we have good reason to expect their solidarity with us in this struggle.

Bang! Alliance is a two-way street. And where were France and Germany, the only “allies” John Kerry seems willing to acknowledge? In Saddam Hussein’s back pocket. That line landed with both feet.

I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours.

Were you listening, Bushophobic 527s? The ears of those not passed out in tequila comas must have been burning.

Now here is where it started building to spectacular.

After years of failed diplomacy and limited military pressure to restrain Saddam Hussein, President Bush made the difficult decision to liberate Iraq. Those who criticize that decision would have us believe that the choice was between a status quo that was well enough left alone and war. But there was no status quo to be left alone. The years of keeping Saddam in a box were coming to a close. The international consensus that he be kept isolated and unarmed had eroded to the point that many critics of military action had decided the time had come again to do business with Saddam, despite his near daily attacks on our pilots, and his refusal, until his last day in power, to allow the unrestricted inspection of his arsenal.

Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents.”

Wait for it, wait for it…

And certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls.

The delegates went absolutely bananas. McCain couldn’t get past “filmmaker” for several whole minutes. And, as I had almost forgotten, Michael Moore was actually present in MSG as a “correspondent” for USA Today. It didn’t take long for the cameras to find him, the conceited, skuzzy, smelly, putrid, mendacious, obnoxious, bigoted, ignorant-and-damn-proud-of-it, morbidly obese eye of the perfect storm, smugly reveling in the disapprobation of the people whom he’d load on cattle cars to send to Alaska concentration camps if he had the power he dreams of.

Interestingly enough, Tuesday morning the publication announced that they were withdrawing Moore from the premises for the remainder of the week, though he will still fulfill his columnar obligation, which is kind of like hiring Roto-Rooter but telling them not to bring their hoses.

When order was finally restored, the “Maverick’s” ringing defense of Operation Iraqi Freedom was point made and seconded by acclamation. Indeed, it echoed and reinforced Ron Silver’s earlier remarks – Bush did indeed “do the right thing.”

[A]n absence of complacency should not provoke an absence of confidence. What our enemies have sought to destroy is beyond their reach. It cannot be taken from us. It can only be surrendered.

Another toe-curlingly effective shot at Mr. French. And one for which he has no real, much less comprehensible, answer.