Quotes of the Day

It had long been expected that President Bush's re-election strategy would hinge on his convincing us we needed him to protect us from terrorism. So it was a surprise this week when the Republicans revealed the real message of their 2004 convention: We need President Bush to protect us from Zell Miller. The Democratic senator-turned-Democratic scourge laid into John Kerry Wednesday night with an Old Testament rage that crescendoed when he looked into the camera, quivering, and promised Americans that if they voted for the Democrat from Massachusetts, he would personally come to our houses and "whup your traitorous, Osama-loving asses with a hickory switch."

OK, I paraphrase. But Miller was such an effective bad cop for the Republicans that George W. Bush was bound to come across as a decorous, optimistic relief if he did anything less severe than order all Americans within the sound of his voice to tear Kerry limb from limb. And so last night the GOP sought to encase Bush's "spine of tempered steel" of which Miller spoke into something of a velvet sheath, with a final convention night, and an acceptance speech, that promised a vengeful sword wielded with a smile.

The walkup to Bush's speech began with a lackluster introduction by New York Gov. George Pataki, a lumbering, uninspiring speaker whose Presidential hopes must be kept alive by the hopeful example of Gerald Ford. Pataki had the additional misfortune to be followed by a professional performer: former Sen. Fred Thompson, already familiar to TV viewers in the 10 p.m. hour from Law & Order. Thompson narrated a campaign video (shown on cable and PBS but not the big networks) of still images from Sept. 11 and after, scored with sentimental music like Amazing Grace on bagpipes — call it Ken Burns' War on Terror — that portrayed the president as not only a firm leader but a likable man's man. (Reverentially folksy example: "Maybe when we look back at this era and this man, we'll ask, what do a bullhorn and a baseball have in common?")

President Bush took the floor on a much-vaunted "stage in the round" that projected out into the crowd. Like pretty much everything about the Bush presidency, it could be seen two different ways: if you were in the President's corner, it was a pitcher's mound and 43 was ready to strike out the side; if you played for the other guys, it was a creepy, high-tech superdais, like something the Emperor's holograph would have materialized on in Star Wars.

The speech broke down roughly into two parts, domestic policy and the war on terror. It was shortly after the president turned to the homeland-security section of the speech, talking about his strategy of "striking terrorists abroad so that we do not have to face them at home" that he was interrupted by the first of two protesters who had snuck into Madison Square Garden. Delegates vociferously shouted down both of them, seeming to rattle Bush and creating the momentarily jarring impression that the crowd was booing its own president.

It isn't fair to hold President Bush responsible for, you know, maintaining tight security at a highly-sensitive target in the city of New York — after all, that had nothing to do with why the GOP chose the convention site, right? Still, he missed an opportunity for a Reaganesque impromptu moment, defusing the situation with a joke or rising above it with a remark about the liberties that our soldiers are defending. Instead, he simply plowed through his remarks — not quite a The Pet Goat moment, but not a display of great nimbleness either.

Bush's speech began and ended, unsurprisingly, with Sept. 11, and it was there that his voice was most comfortable and his speech was most eloquent, exploitative, or both. "We learned of passengers on a doomed plane who died with a courage that frightened their killers," he said near the beginning. "For as long as our country stands, people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose," he said near the end.

Of course, war or no, national loss or no, this was still a campaign. The dead were mourned, and the balloons and confetti fell a few minutes later. (On Hardball, Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell had a rousing debate over whether Democrats or Republicans dropped balloons better.) The instant analysis began (Fox News's Jim Angle noted "a lot of detail" in the Bush speech; the New York Times headlined its news analysis, "Bold Strokes, Few Details"). And no pretty words were going to erase the ugliness of a close campaign. By midnight, John Kerry was giving a quickly arranged, blistering speech in Ohio to rebut the president's speech and the attacks against him on Millernacht.

Brighter political minds than I can decide whether this was the best time for Kerry to respond — whether punching back quick and getting in the morning papers was more important than delivering a tough attack while people were, you know, awake. But as simple TV theater, it appeared to be a mistake. Most people, after all, would see Kerry's speech the next day, on the news roundups; they would see clips of the president, enthralling to a roaring, partying crowd amid all the accouterments of power, and Kerry talking in front of a backdrop of tired-looking supporters in T-shirts. And they would see Kerry playing his own hatchet man, calling Bush and Cheney "unfit to lead this country," while Bush eulogized 3,000 dead — the hatchet work already having been done for him.

In any case, scant minutes into Kerry's speech, MSNBC, Fox and CNN cut away from him in order to immediately debate the effectiveness of his talk — Kerry's response, of course, being less important than the need of Chris Matthews et al. to analyze the response before it was even finished.

More educational, if more bizarre, was comic Mo Rocca on CNN's Larry King Show, reporting from the empty convention-floor spot that had housed the Ohio delegation. Ohio, he explained, was the home state of Republican James A. Garfield, who won the 1880 election in part by arguing that a southern Democrat victory would lead to a new Civil War. Rocca then proceeded to sing the actual Garfield campaign song, to the tune of When Johnny Comes Marching Home: "Our laws they'll jeer, our flag they'll flout; they'll try to turn our officers out. And we'll all wear gray if the Johnnies get into power!"

All this, of course, from the place where we heard, for four days, the nightmare that would result if today's Johnnies — Kerry and Edwards — got into power. A little something to remember the next time anyone tells you that 9/11 changed politics in America.

• James Poniewozik
• James Poniewozik on a martial night at the Republican convention