Rudy Giuliani had high octane stuff at the RNC Monday night. Via Blogs for Bush, my favorite passage:
On September 20, 2001, President Bush stood before a joint session of Congress, a still grieving and shocked nation and a confused world and he did change the direction of our ship of state. He dedicated America under his leadership to destroying global terrorism.The President announced the Bush Doctrine when he said: “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”
And since September 11th President Bush has remained rock solid.
It doesn’t matter how he is demonized. It doesn’t matter what the media does to ridicule him or misinterpret him or defeat him.
They ridiculed Winston Churchill. They belittled Ronald Reagan. But like President Bush, they were optimists; leaders must be optimists. Their vision was beyond the present and set on a future of real peace and true freedom.
Some call it stubbornness. I call it principled leadership.
President Bush has the courage of his convictions.
In choosing a President, we really don’t choose a Republican or Democrat, a conservative or liberal. We choose a leader.
And in times of danger, as we are now in, Americans should put leadership at the core of their decision.
There are many qualities that make a great leader but having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader. Winston Churchill saw the dangers of Hitler while his opponents characterized him as a warmongering gadfly.
Ronald Reagan saw and described the Soviet Union as “the evil empire” while world opinion accepted it as inevitable and belittled Ronald Reagan’s intelligence. President Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is.
John McCain delivered a strong endorsement of President Bush...
As the President rightly reminds us, we are safer than we were on September 11th, but we’re not yet safe. We are still closer to the beginning than the end of this fight.We need a leader with the experience to make the tough decisions and the resolve to stick with them; a leader who will keep us moving forward even if it is easier to rest.
And this President will not rest until America is stronger and safer still, and this hateful iniquity is vanquished. He has been tested and has risen to the most important challenge of our time, and I salute him.
I salute his determination to make this world a better, safer, freer place.
He has not wavered. He has not flinched from the hard choices. He will not yield.
And neither will we.
... but his delivery was flat as usual. Small wonder that he could never achieve escape velocity as a presidential candidate himself.
Posted by Alan at August 31, 2004 12:58 AM