Rudolph Giuliani's presence in the prime slot on the evening of day one is easy to understand.
Ever since it was announced that New York would host the first Republican convention in the 150 year old history of the party, the feeling has been that it was a cheap attempt to hijack an American tragedy for its own political purposes.
Giuliani -- "America's Mayor", as he was known in the aftermath of the terror strikes -- was intended to negate that charge.
'Americans first, last and always'
On a night when the party did everything short of playing Wagner to underline the image of Bush as a wartime president, Giuliani took on the charge, answered it with some humor, some logic and some sophistry, and then went beyond to launch a blistering attack on Democratic Senator John Kerry.
The Democrats may in fact have missed a bet. In Boston a month ago, the Kerry campaign enforced an unwritten rule that there would be no attacks on President Bush; the Republicans, even on the early evidence of just one day, are under no such constraints.
If this trend keeps up over the next three days, the convention would have blown a big hole in Kerry's flank, and left the Democrats bleeding.
Giuliani set the tone of his speech early. Recalling the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the then Mayor spoke of how George Bush had stood on the rubble of the WTC (a theme, and image, he was to invoke
repeatedly in his speech) and recalled how the President had said then, 'I hear you, we all hear you. And those who perpetrated this horrific attack on us will hear from all of us, soon.'
That was a moment of pure theatre here; Giuliani used the memory of that moment to legitimize the President's actions.
"They have heard us in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is no more and al Qaeda is on the run; they heard is in Iraq where a tyrant is behind bars and a people are free; they heard us in Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi chose to give up his weapons of mass destruction; they are hearing us in other countries that are increasingly reluctant to sponsor terrorism. And as long as George W Bush is President, they will continue to hear from us."
A trick in demagoguery is to not answer the charge directly, but to rephrase it in a way that suits you, and then answer the revised version.
Thus, Giuliani reinvented the charge that New York had been chosen to make political capital of 9/11; in his version, the problem was not this, but the security implications and potential threat of terrorist attacks on New York.
Having redefined the charge, he then used it to bring the audience to its feet for the nth time. "We will not let terrorists determine where to hold our conventions and where to travel. We are Americans, this is
the land of the free, and the home of the brave."
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Like McCain, Giuliani embraced the Democrats -- the better to stick the knife in. "Neither party has a monopoly on what is right," he said. "Not all our ideas are right, and not all their ideas are wrong. But
there are times when one party's ideas are more necessary."
Time and again, Giuliani cut back to 9/11. The terror. The devastation. The bravery of unnumbered firefighters, police officers and others.
And above all, to President George W Bush, who stood four square in back of the beleaguered city and gave it all the help it needed and then some.
Each fresh telling was spiced with an anecdote; each balanced humor with the memories of that grim time; each said the same thing, in different ways; together, they all nailed home the message that 9/11 and George Bush were inextricably linked.
"Even if he does not win a second term," Giuliani was to say at one point, "he has already done enough to go down in history as a great president."
And then Giuliani upped the ante. Pointing out that terrorism was not new, he harked back to 1972, and the attack on Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics. Three months later, he said, the German government
had freed three of the perpetrators.
Europe, he said, had always followed a policy of appeasement and compromise. "What can better indicate that, than the fact that Yasser Arafat was given a Nobel Peace Prize?"
That, he said, was the difference -- Bush had the vision to realize that appeasement would not work; that a flat out war on terrorism was required, no matter what the cost. Bush, he said, was not worried about public opinion, merely about doing what he thought was right.
And that naturally cued in the assault on Kerry -- who Giuliani characterized as a vacillator. "I respect John Kerry for his service to the nation," Giuliani said; and then stuck the knife in.
Kerry had voted against the Gulf War; later he told a media outlet he favored it. Kerry told one newspaper the wall the Israelis are building in the West Bank will increase, not contain, terrorism;
Kerry told another paper that the wall was Israel's right, as part of its self defense. Kerry voted for the war in Iraq; then voted against the financial appropriation sought to prosecute that war.
The picture he painted was of a Kerry too susceptible to public opinion; contrast that with Bush the resolute leader who would immediately decide what the right, and only, course of action was, and
stick to it no matter who said what.
And so, to the conclusion -- that America needed a strong leader, one who had only the best interests of
America at heart and would operate to that end, without giving a fig for the whims and fancies of public opinion.
It was a barnstorming, and it effectively concluded an evening dominated by the martial theme.
Inside the Garden, the scene had been crafted with an eye to prime time television -- red carpet covering the delegates' floor; blue seats; hot white baby spots dancing over the tableau.
A series of speakers -- Ohio Representative Deborah Pryce, Medico's Heather Wilson, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert; former NY Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was in charge on 9/11; Rob Khizami, former Assistant District Attorney for New York involved in terrorism related chases; Zainab Al Suwaij, Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress and survivor of the Saddam regime -- had all in their varying ways underlined the message that America's military adventures of the last three years were right, just, and inevitable.
It was, all of it, a build up to the prime time finale. At around 8 pm, the Bush twins Barbara and Jenna made an appearance.
At 8.30, Vice-President Dick Cheney walked in with wife Lynne; moments later, former President George H W Bush and wife Barbara entered to sustained applause. And, in a moment of theatre, just minutes before Senator Lindsey Graham was due to introduce Senator McCain, country singer Darryl Worley took the stage.
Worley was the man who, after a tour to Afghanistan in late 2002 to entertain the troops, came back and wrote the emotive 'Have you Forgotten?', a song that spoke of al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and the sacrifice of soldiers, and that touched on the sacrifice of soldiers in the war on terror.
That song had, in 2003, zoomed up the country charts. Today, he sang -- and the crowd sang with him:
"I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?"
One final, emotional connection to 9/11 was made when three survivors took the stage, at the end of McCain's speech and before the commencement of Giuliani's. Dina Burnett, widow of Tom Burnett, passenger on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania, spoke of how he had called her four times after the hijack, indicating that the passengers were planning to do something to overpower the terrorists.
Deborrah Burlinghame spoke of her brother Charles, captain of Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon one day before his birthday. And Tara Stackpole spoke of her husband Timothy, a fireman who had in
fighting a huge blaze been seriously injured, fought his way back, rejoined duty in March 2001 and on September 11, rushed into the WTC to help who he could, and was never seen again.
"I am proud that he died the way he did, and I am proud to lend America my son Kevin, who goes to Iraq with the US Navy in December," she said.
America's favorite tenor, Daniel Rodriguez, climaxed that segment of emotional tribute with a rendering of Amazing Grace -- and you had to go to the press box if you wanted to see a dry eye in the house at
that point.
Day one is done. With Bush's credentials as wartime commander-in-chief established, stand by for a change of pace as tomorrow, First Lady Laura Bush and California Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger turn the focus on the President's agenda of 'compassionate conservatism.'