Convention Truths

Date: September 3 2004
Sent to but not published by Washington Post

The Republican party Convention is becoming the convention of the big lie. So far the top performer has been erstwhile Democrat, Zell Miller. His list of weapons systems that John Kerry voted against were, in the main, weapons systems that Dick Cheney was also opposed to.

Never mind, the great American public will not notice that Cheney and Kerry were united on those issues. Only the lie that Kerry was soft on defence will be remembered

Close behind in the absurdity of his support for war was moderate republican Senator John McCain. He effused that we had to go to war because "We couldn't afford the risk posed by an unconstrained Saddam in these dangerous times." Unfortunately, Senator McCain overlooked the constraints imposed upon Saddam by the UN Sanctions, the arms inspectors who were on the ground (and finding nothing), and the allies who were patrolling Iraqi air space. Some freedom! With those constraints the necessity of war becomes quite questionable.

Our final example comes not from the convention itself but from some pre-convention advice given to the President by Senator Susan Collins writing in the Boston Globe. She claims that President Bush “called for the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.” (Boston Globe, August 29, 2004). She conveniently forgets that from October 2001 until June of 2002, President Bush soundly resisted the call for a Department of Homeland Security. It was only through pressure from the Democrats and especially from the families of those who perished in the 9/11 attacks that President Bush reluctantly adopted the idea in June of 2002.

Really even a Massachusetts Democrat expects better of these distinguished Senators. In politics, as in war, the first casualty is the whole truth.