Platitudes with no attitude

I wanted to make some comments about Sen. Kerry’sspeech at the convention. This was an okay speech with nothing really memorable to be repeated and it was delivered as best as a droning John Kerry can muster. Thankfully there was no five minute kiss of his wife at the end ala Al Gore. TS O’Rama shared with me a line he had heard about the convention "No platitude left behind!" That pretty much sums it up.

As President, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House.

I have heard that one before. I remember hearing on the radio as Bill Clinton said "Mine will be the most ethical administration in the history of the Republic!" And Mr. Kerry is off to a great start with advisors such as Sandy Berger and Joe Wilson. Oops I forgot they have been textually airbrushed out of his campaign site. And isn’t the word credibility an antonym for flip-flop? Referring to the economy he said:

We can do better and we will. We’re the optimists.

How many optimist talk about a "jobless recovery" when the unemployment rate is slowing declining? How many optimists do you know that release misery indexes? According to factcheck.org "The original "misery index" is simply the jobless rate added to the inflation rate. The term was coined by economist Arthur Okun, an economic adviser in Lyndon Johnson’s administration. It was widely used during the "stagflation" of the ’70s and ’80s when stagnant economic growth kept unemployment high and inflation reduced the buying power of wages." Now computing the classic "Misery Index" shows the index as being lower than Clinton’s first four years. To get the results Kerry wanted they used highly selective indicators.

I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a President who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That’s the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.

Here is the reality: that won’t happen until we have a president who restores America’s respect and leadership — so we don’t have to go it alone in the world.

And we need to rebuild our alliances, so we can get the terrorists before they get us.

Government by a consensus. Why do we even need a president to lead us? One committee can just send its recommendation to another committee in a different government. Of course an elephant is a horse designed by a committee Leadership is the ability to make a decision and do what is right whether everyone or no one agrees with you. Sure we need to work within the framework of other governments to achieve our missions. But the process is not the end all. To say that it is a failure to have only 33 countries as part of the coalition forces in Iraq is just plain silly. Just because France and Germany, two countries with extensive economic ties to Iraq, didn’t sign on. To aim for one hundred percent agreement on world affairs is a fool’s dream. We need a president who is a leader and not a committee chairman. As Margaret Thatcher said "To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects."

We will add 40,000 active duty troops – not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations. We will provide our troops with the newest weapons and technology to save their lives – and win the battle. And we will end the backdoor draft of National Guard and reservists.

Not in Iraq? In May of 2004 Mr. Kerry called for 40,000 more U.S. Troops in Iraq. "The extra troops are needed in Iraq to ease pressure on soldiers and National Guard troops battling insurgents in the Middle Eastern country. Half of the 40,000 troops would be used as military police and for civil affairs, tasks now mainly carried out by reservists, while the other 20,000 would be combat troops." Sounds like a flip-flop to me. I guess his leadership did not get past the parties’ leadership and into the platform.

What exactly is the point of National Guard and Reservist other than to supply a ready force when we need to expand those troops? I agree we need to expand the military which was cut back drastically starting at the end of the Bush-41 years and even more during the Clinton years. Now I am glad to hear he will support the newest weapons and technology to our troops. This of course is a drastic change to his years in the senate of voting against bills that contained appropriations for the B1, B2, F-14, F15, F-16, Harrier, Apache, Patriot Missile, Aegis, Trident, M-1, Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Tomahawk. Now I know these spending bills did not only have only these item in them, but his senate record just doesn’t support weapon systems including him being a great advocate of the nuclear freeze.

To all who serve in our armed forces today, I say, help is on the way.

Today I was shopping in Wal-Mart at the self serve checkout. The person in the aisle next to me must have made a mistake because the computerized voice talked about an error and said "Help is on the way." I looked around but I did not see John Kerry coming.

You see that flag up there. We call her Old Glory. The stars and stripes forever. I fought under that flag, as did so many of you here and all across our country. That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind. It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with. For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good.

That flag doesn’t belong to any president. It doesn’t belong to any ideology and it doesn’t belong to any political party. It belongs to all the American people.

Nice words from the strongest opponent of the Constitutional amendment to prevent flag desecration Now I am not any great supporter of that amendment since I believe that it would probably invoke more flag burning than anything, but then again I probably also wouldn’t make a speech about Old Glory and also place an upside flag on my book cover.

My fellow citizens, elections are about choices. And choices are about values. In the end, it’s not just policies and programs that matter; the president who sits at that desk must be guided by principle.

Of course he couldn’t act on those principles since he said in the past that a lawmaker should not "legislate his personal beliefs." Or does he have principles not based on beliefs?

For four years, we’ve heard a lot of talk about values. But values spoken without actions taken are just slogans. Values are not just words. They’re what we live by.

You mean like saying life begins at conception and then voting for partial birth abortion?

You don’t value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.

I think we need to rid our tax code of corporate welfare. Something like a flat tax or a national sales tax. Sen. Kerry worked on legislation to punish companies for moving offshore. One company that ended up getting an exemption was H.J. Heinz. I am sure I heard that name recently somewhere.

We believe in the family value expressed in one of the oldest Commandments: "Honor thy father and thy mother." As President, I will not privatize Social Security.

Gee, I didn’t realize that the ten commandment came out one at a time and that some were newer or older. Did after the first commandment come out "I am the LORD your God…" that the Israelite said "Hey this is good stuff, we want more" By the time the series came to coveting thy neighbors goods did they said "no more, enough already." Another question I have is that when SS goes bust because new workers never enter the workplace because they were not chosen to leave the womb, how are we going to fund this pyramid scheme? Without some form of privatisation it will give no honor to they mother or father to have a SS check with a big fat zero on it. President Bush and his advisors need to get this discussion back on track (third rail or not).

What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steel worker I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas and the equipment in his factory literally unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away along with that job? What does it mean when workers I’ve met had to train their foreign replacements?

I bet there were a lot of sad stories for buggy whip manufacturers too. Companies need tough love by the government and we can no longer subsidize industries that are on the down swing. Infusing them with cash does not help the fact that either they are not innovating or that their time has just gone. One of the big government mistakes made by President Bush was when he enacted the steel tariffs that just tossed government money down the sinkhole of American companies who could no longer compete on the world market. As Walter Williams mentioned it would have been cheaper to spend the money pensioning the 23,000 steel workers with a salary of 45,000 a year for the rest of their lives.

What does it mean when twenty five percent of the children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution?

Junk science alert. Michele Malkin has the details.

Oh and of course you could not hear a major speech from a Democrat without a little class warfare thrown in.

And let me tell you what we won’t do: we won’t raise taxes on the middle class. You’ve heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as President: I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education.

I’ve offered a comprehensive plan…[that] starts with a tax cut for the middle class.”, “We will lower the tax burden on the middle class…”, “I will not raise taxes on the middle class.” No these are not John Kerry’s press statements but campaign promises from another Democratic candidate – Bill Clinton in 1992. I remember that I intellectually softened the blow of his presidency by thinking that at least he might be a new democrat that with tax cuts which would spur parts of the economy. Fool me once ….. I also wonder if John or Teresa refunded the Bush tax cut money they received back to the Government? With Democrats it is always "you first."

And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future — so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Here is another blast from the Democratic past – Jimmy Carter.

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade — a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.

"Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun."

What no alternative fuels yet? I found that one of the most annoying things about politics is that I suffer with a memory. How much easier it would be to forget what was promised and said in the past and to live as one with short-term political memory. All of these concepts of alternative fuels usually ignore infrastructure and current equipment. Even if a good source for alternative fuels were found tomorrow we would not see any implementation during even an eight year Kerry administration. What needs to be done right now to reduce foreign oil dependence is using oil sources already within our territories; offshore or in places such as Alaska. Sen. Kerry has voted repeatedly against domestic drilling in ANWR. I have no attachment to having to fuel my car with gasoline, but I do want to put something in it that will actually get me to work.

What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson’s, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and AIDS? What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?

What if millions have to die on the altar of the petri dish so that you and I might theoretically live longer? What if we have a president who believes in junk science?

What was the most interesting parts of the speech was not what was said, but what was unsaid. If you took all the speeches delivered at the convention you could not extract the parties platform from them. There was not much red meat for anti-war activists to hear that John Kerry would expand the number of military personnel. There was some parts tossed in about the environment, but not the Republicans want dirty water and air pollution rhetoric of the past. No mention of affirmative action. Here they were in Massachusetts the first state with same-sex marriage and neither Johns mentioned this issue. No mention of FMA or their belief that the state’s have the right to decide individually on same-sex marriage. No red meat for the abortion activists, no women rights or choice cliches. No mention of the importance of appointing federal judges. He did say "And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States" which I guess is a reference to keeping Roe v. Wade. I just have a hard time buying Democrats as the guardian of the Constitution and states’ rights. The race card was not even pulled, just a mention of "This is our time to reject the kind of politics calculated to divide race from race, group from group, region from region." That is good news. I hope it means that we won’t have any "when you don’t vote another church burns" or the NAACP’s commercial blaming Bush for the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd.

Howard Dean in his speech at the convention said "we will never again be ashamed to call ourselves Democrats — never, never, never." But judging by the speeches of both Johns they are afraid to be what the Democrat party has come to be as defined in its own platform. Their prime time speeches were not the same as what they fed party faithful during the primaries. "A Remarkable Promise," the nine-minute film biography of John Kerry was shown prior to his speech. This was put together by director James Moll and had as an advisor Steven Spielberg and as narrator Morgan Freeman. I won’t get into the controversy of the re-enacted scenes from Kerry 8mm home camera but like the speech it was remarkable for what it didn’t say. A big build up on his Vietnam experience, time as a prosecutor and so forth. No mention of his anti-war activists and his time as the spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War or his winter soldier testimony. They mentioned his time as Lieutenant Governor, but completely avoided the "D" word. You know Governor Dukakis. The official John Kerry site in their biography also doesn’t mention the "D" word. Of course the whole convention even being in Massachusetts totally avoided the "D" word or any speeches by the "D" word and who can blame them? If Democrats are so proud of their advocacies then why does abortion have to hide under choice. Why does the word cloning have to hide behind "somatic cell nuclear transfer?" Why does their total support of not only the homosexual lifestyle and same-sex marriage have to hide behind states’ rights?

As mentioned in another post the parties platform that was voted on now has the 2000 tolerance on abortion plank removed. There is now no more room for tolerance or discussion of this issue since abortion now has full and total support. But again the public was not informed of this via any speeches.

Possibly the organizers of the Democratic Convention also didn’t like John Kerry’s speech. On their official page they have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’s highlights. But no listing of highlights for Thursday.