Last night in New York was a shrewd and, to my mind, often effective attempt to recapture why so many of us admired George W. Bush’s leadership during the dark days after 9/11 and the precarious, nail-biting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It still seems to me that no one will ever take away the power of those days – or the soaring rhetoric of Bush’s speech to Congress that lifted him to a new level of leadership. John McCain’s speech struck me therefore as ultimately about character. It was not a complete endorsement of everything Bush. Far from it. Here’s a passage that struck me as an implicit rebuke to Bush’s hubris after the fall of Baghdad:
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.
McCain also avoided harsh partisan name-calling; and you can easily see why an honorable man like this would recoil from old soldiers trying to besmirch the medals of others. Nevertheless, he made a strong case for Bush as a solid leader in wartime, and, more importantly, for the nobility and importance of taking out Saddam. His point about the foolish notion that we could somehow have left Saddam in power in a stable status quo is one I’ve made before and critical to a serious defense of the decision to go to war. It was also delicious to watch this genuine hero go after that dishonest charlatan, Michael Moore. I only wish it didn’t make Moore feel even more important. The only flaw in McCain’s speech was the delivery. It was oddly flat, almost drained. McCain seemed tired. But he gives me hope that the GOP is not doomed to become the reincarnation of the Dixiecrats, that it can avoid the rancid recesses of its own fears, that it can rise to the occasion of this war.
THE FEISTY MAYOR: Giuliani was on fire. He spoke so easily, so amusingly, and so emotionally that for long passages, you forgot he was giving a speech and felt he was talking with you. His iconic status is oddly a problem for him, because it has tended to obscure his street-smart, clear-eyed chattiness – the kind of thing a New York mayor can use from time to time. But it was on display last night to great effect. Again, Giuliani spoke to Bush’s emotional intelligence after 9/11, his genuine attempt to do what he believed was best for the country at a time of terror, and to Bush’s personable nature. You just cannot imagine a story in which a huge, ham-handed construction worker would ever give John Kerry a big, warm bear-hug. Or that John Kerry would answer a long disquisition from a man in a hard-hat and feel satisfied to respond with two simple words: “I agree.” Again, Giuliani reminded us of why we tend to like George W. Bush. (Personally, I’d rather have pins stuck in my eyes than endure a conversation with John Kerry, but I’d love to hang with Bush.) All of this matters. A president in wartime needs to be able to connect with people. Bush can. Kerry can’t. It also matters that Bush does seem to have faith in what he is doing. The problem is that he seems to have too much faith at times, and not enough skepticism. You need skepticism in war to second-guess your intelligence sources, to doubt the efficacy of a war with too few troops, or an occupation easily derailed by insurgent forces you greatly under-estimated and failed to foresee. Giuliani’s gamble, however, is that, if you have to pick between faith and skepticism in a war president, the former is more important. If the choice between Bush and Kerry can be conveyed as such a choice, then Bush wins easily. It is, of course, much more complicated than that. But the point of last night was to reduce complication to simplicity. It worked, in so far as anyone saw it.
THE SHIFTING CAMPAIGN: In all this, you can almost feel the election swinging Bush’s way a little. The swift boat smear was important in jolting the conversation, in changing the dynamic that was pointing to a Bush defeat. But Kerry’s weaknesses are also at play here. I don’t believe his convention was wasted. He had to emphasize national security. But it’s domestic policies that will win him the election, if he does win, and he hasn’t yet made them the focus of the battle. Maybe he will. But the bottom line is that Kerry is a deeply weak candidate, and it took McCain and Giuliani, almost by simple contrast, to remind us why. Bush still has a case to make – defending his record deficits, his errors in the war in Iraq, his vast new spending, his refusal to tackle entitlements, his protectionism, his anti-gay amendment, and so on. But he’s ahead on the leadership front, even before he gives his acceptance speech. Not bad.
The Dish 