In his speech to the Republican National Convention Tuesday night, President George W. Bush mentioned Hurricane Gustav, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John McCain, “the angry left,” off-shore oil drilling, funding for U.S. troops, Sarah Palin, a painting of a Texas sunrise, “the goodness and wisdom of the American people,” and his wife Laura, “a fantastic first lady.”
And then he said good night.
He made no mention of the devastated families who have lost their homes to foreclosures, $4-a-gallon gasoline or the puny five million jobs created during his administration. The growing number of the jobless went unmentioned, as did the tanking stock market and the historic gap between the country’s rich and poor while the middle class loses ground with each paycheck.
In his speech to the convention, former Sen. Fred Thompson called vice presidential candidate Palin a “breath of fresh air.” Then he mentioned Sunday morning TV talk shows, the Washington cocktail party circuit, McCain’s appealing “rebelliousness,” McCain’s son serving in Iraq, and the patriotic values of those who wear the U.S. military uniform.
He spent several minutes talking about McCain’s heart-wrenching ordeal as a prisoner of war, the isolation McCain felt and the courage he displayed in the face of brutal beatings. On television, the big convention hall seemed silent and justifiably awed.
Then Thompson said, “Being a POW doesn’t qualify anybody to be president, but it does reveal character.” And he closed by mentioning, in a few sentence fragments, tax increases, the Washington bureaucracy, abortion, and once more McCain’s “character” and “courage.”
And then Thompson said good night.
He made no mention of the country’s record credit card debt, or its dramatically rising food prices and declining incomes. The record number of poor and homeless got not a single mention, nor did the millions who have no health care.
In his speech to the convention, Sen. Joe Lieberman gave a nod to those who have survived Hurricane Gustav. Katrina went unmentioned. Lieberman said Americans are tired of the political parties fighting each other. He mentioned George Washington. He bemoaned partisan gridlock.
When he finally noted it was time to “solve problems Americans see every day,” he immediately dropped the subject. This kept the record clean for not offering a single acknowledgment of the Bush years of disastrous war and economic bad times. Before closing, Lieberman mentioned immigration and global warming, but they were just words passing through the air, unattached to the slightest idea.
And then he said good night.
There was a sense that the Republicans had bestowed upon themselves a kind of instant amnesia in all this talking. A week ago, we had the newest U.S. Census numbers. Around here, the good news is that Maryland remains the richest state in America and has three of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation: third-ranked Howard, sixth-ranked Calvert and 10th-ranked Montgomery.
But, even in such relative prosperity, the state’s median household income rose barely $1,000 last year while the cost of living jumped far higher. The state’s poverty rate jumped to 8.3 percent. In Baltimore, it rose to 20 percent.
Across the state, there were 130,600 people out of work in June. In Harford County, where the poverty rate jumped 2 percent in the last year, they’re now getting requests like they’ve never seen for food stamps, medical help and housing assistance. Across Maryland, 762,000 people have no health insurance. That’s almost 14 percent of the population.
So much for the wealthiest state in America.
Political conventions are occasions to strut your stuff, to celebrate your accomplishments and lay out your plans for the coming years.
Somewhere in there, though, there ought to be a passing reference to the obvious and a declaration of intent to fix what’s gone wrong.
The Republicans honor McCain for his inconceivable courage in Vietnam. He’s brought that toughness to the U.S. Senate. But such a man, and a party that asks America to vote for him because of his record, ought to be brave enough to state the obvious: The country can’t go on the way it has. Too much has gone wrong. It didn’t happen by accident, it happened because those in charge made some awful decisions.
Polls say 80 percent of voters believe the country’s “going in the wrong direction.” In his acceptance speech tonight, maybe McCain could do what others have failed to do — take at least a few moments to acknowledge where it’s gone wrong before he tells us how he would try to make things right.
