RNC @ MSG: Big Time

Let’s just get one thing settled at the outset: Dick Cheney is who he is. He’s not a scintillating orator. He’s not particularly pleasant to look at. His speeches are like listening to a CEO give a quarterly earnings report at a board of directors meeting. But there’s nobody you’d rather have in that position then he.

And don’t think he’s not comfortable with it:

I am also mindful now that I have an opponent of my own. People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal and his great hair. I say to them: ‘How do you think I got the job?’

I’d heard that one from his stump speeches, but it still elicits at least a self-deprecating chuckle in passing. And it also takes a subtle dig at Opie’s appalling lack of substance, experience, and gravitas at the same time. That’s why I wouldn’t miss the veep debate for all the women in a Victoria’s Secret catalog – it’s going to look like Mr. Wilson versus Dennis the Menace, except that in this case Mr. Wilson won’t lose his cool.

Following was a bit of biographical background, a brief run down the second-term laundry list, and then into a robust defense of the President’s national security record, which, not surprisingly, is where business began to pick up.

Four years ago, some said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false. Like other generations of Americans, we soon discovered that history had great and unexpected duties in store for us.

September 11th, 2001, made clear the challenges we face. On that day we saw the harm that could be done by 19 men armed with knives and boarding passes. America also awakened to a possibility even more lethal: this enemy, whose hatred of us is limitless, armed with chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons.

Just as surely as the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War, the enemy we face today is bent on our destruction.

As in other times, we are in a war we did not start, and have no choice but to win. Firm in our resolve, focused on our mission, and led by a superb commander in chief, we will prevail.

The fanatics who killed some 3,000 of our fellow Americans may have thought they could attack us with impunity, because terrorists had done so previously. But if the killers of September 11th thought we had lost the will to defend our freedom, they did not know America, and they did not know George W. Bush.

From the beginning, the President made clear that the terrorists would be dealt with and that anyone who supports, protects or harbors them would be held to account. In a campaign that has reached around the world, we have captured or killed hundreds of al-Qaeda. In Afghanistan, the camps where terrorists trained to kill Americans have been shut down and the Taliban driven from power.

In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein. Seventeen months ago, he controlled the lives and fortunes of 25 million people. Tonight he sits in jail.

President Bush does not deal in empty threats and half measures. And his determination has sent a clear message. Just five days after Saddam was captured, the government of Libya agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program and turn the materials over to the United States.

Tonight, the uranium, the centrifuges and plans and designs for nuclear weapons that were once hidden in Libya are locked up and stored away in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, never again to threaten America.

The biggest threat we face today is having nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists. The president is working with many countries in a global effort to end the trade and transfer of these deadly technologies. The most important result thus far, and it is a very important one, is that the black-market network that supplied nuclear weapons technology to Libya, as well as to Iran and North Korea, has been shut down.

The world's worst source of nuclear weapons proliferation is out of business, and we are safer as a result.

The tenor ramped up further with the contrast between the grown-ups and John-John:

[I]t is time to set the alternatives squarely before the American people.

The President's opponent is an experienced senator. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it.

But there is also a record of more than three decades since. And on the question of America's role in the world, the differences between Senator Kerry and President Bush are the sharpest, and the stakes for the country are the highest.

History has shown that a strong and purposeful America is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us safe. Yet time and again, Senator Kerry has made the wrong call on national security.

Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed ‘only at the directive of the United Nations.’ [Gee, I could have sworn that Senator Miller said that, too…]

During the 1980s, Senator Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan's major defense initiatives that brought victory in the Cold War.

In 1991, when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait and stood poised to dominate the Persian Gulf, Senator Kerry voted against Operation Desert Storm.

And then, a nice shot:

Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a ‘more sensitive war on terror,’ as though al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side.

Followed by a devastating uppercut:

He declared at the Democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked.

That one snapped Lurch’s head back.

We are faced with an enemy who seeks the deadliest of weapons to use against us, and we cannot wait for the next attack. We must do everything we can to prevent it, and that includes the use of military
force.

Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve, as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics. But, in fact, in the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side.

Worlds without end, halleluiah, amen.

But as the President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few. George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the
American people.

Thus have both legs been clipped out from under Kerry’s already wobbly, muddled Iraq stance.

Senator Kerry also takes a different view when it comes to supporting our military. Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, he then decided he was opposed to the war, and voted against funding for our men and women in the field.

Thank you, Howard Dean…

Senator Kerry is campaigning for the position of commander in chief. Yet he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief, and that is to support American troops in combat.

Ouch – an oblique reference to Kerry’s libelous 1971 Senate testimony. Might just as well have said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

In his years in Washington, John Kerry has been one of a 100 votes in the United States Senate. And fortunately on matters of national security, his views rarely prevailed.

But the presidency is an entirely different proposition. A senator can be wrong for 20 years, without consequence to the nation.

But a president, a president, always casts the deciding vote.

Think that line didn’t connect with a whoooole lotta undecided voters?

On Iraq, Senator Kerry has disagreed with many of his fellow Democrats. But Senator Kerry's liveliest disagreement is with himself.

His back-and-forth reflects a habit of indecision and sends a message of confusion. And it's all part of a pattern. He has, in the last several years, been for the No Child Left Behind Act and against it. He has spoken in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement and against it. He is for the Patriot Act and against it.

Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual. America sees two John Kerrys.

Bammo! I can just see the little volcanoes in Lurch’s eyes, the steam venting out of his ears, and the top of his skull shooting straight into the air. As vain, conceited, and thin-skinned as Kerry is, this stuff is going to send him further over the edge and his campaign spiraling downward even faster.

When you look at Dick Cheney, you see a calm, cool, unflappable, experienced, avuncular man who just oozes trustworthiness and reassurance. No wonder Bush is so loyal to him. And good Lord, what a contrast that makes with Hair, the Boy Follicle Wonder. And that is why the “arousal gap” between the two will be as relevant as pants to an anaconda.

According to a news account last month, people leaving the Democratic National Convention asked a Boston policeman for directions. He replied, "Leave here, and go vote Republican."

Sound advice for one and all.