GOP Locks In on Theme, and Opens Fire on Kerry(It's the terrorism, stupid

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-assess2sep02.story
NEWS ANALYSIS
GOP Locks In on Theme, and Opens Fire on Kerry
By Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writer

September 2, 2004

NEW YORK — It's the terrorism, stupid.

With their relentless, double-barreled attack on Democratic nominee John F. Kerry on Wednesday night, Vice President Dick Cheney and keynote speaker Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) reduced President Bush's case for reelection to virtually a single argument: Bush would be tough and resolute in the war on terrorism and Kerry would be neither.

Cheney, more than Miller, also sought to present Bush as a visionary leader who had reconstructed America's foreign policy to confront global terrorism, much the same way President Truman and his advisors built a new international order after World War II.

But such positive arguments were overshadowed by an attack on Kerry far more sustained and ferocious than anything Bush faced during prime time at July's Democratic National Convention in Boston.

As striking as the heated tone was the narrow focus: Apart from fleeting references to education and the economy from the vice president, Cheney and Miller confined their speeches almost entirely to national security.

That followed the pattern set by earlier speakers such as former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who lavishly praised Bush's strategy in the fight against terrorism and staunchly defended the war in Iraq, but said almost nothing about the president's domestic record.<snip>

[soothsayer]

1. that's cuz he doesn't HAVE a domestic record, and frankly, his wars on

terra aren't going too good, either

This loser is TOAST!

[drdigi420]

2. all the more reason to push the meme that

Bush is a WIMP and is incapable of protecting us.