CAIRO, 31 August 2004 — US President George Bush would have done well to remember that estate agents’ adage “Location, location, location” when he signed off on New York as the venue for this year’s Republican Convention. If he didn’t then, it must be uppermost now as up to 200,000 anti-Bush protestors throng the city’s streets, mostly drawing attention to his failures in Iraq, the millions of lost jobs, and his intransigent stance on embryonic stem-cell research. One thing is sure. They won’t be gathering in Central Park after a judge chose to protect the grass in favor of the Constitution.
New York is traditionally Democratic with four Democrats to one Republican, although now that the state has a Republican governor and its capital a Democrat-turned-Republican mayor, you might be forgiven if you thought otherwise.
So why did the US president choose New York to show off his “four successful years” in the Oval Office? Wouldn’t Florida, where his younger brother Jeb is governor, or Texas, where he once “reigned”, have offered a warmer ambience to Republican delegates, not to mention far less security headaches? They would have, indeed, but they would not have provided the perfect backdrop to the Bush camp’s main message, which centers on their leader’s handling of Sept. 11, 2001, and his subsequent “war on terror”.
Bush is a self-styled war president and as long as the American nation can be persuaded it’s under serious threat — which involves constant reminding about the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon — they will choose that guy with the tin hat and the bullhorn at Ground Zero, who, with his arm around a firefighter, glued together the racially and sociologically disparate American people as never before.
US Vice President Dick Cheney kick-started the Sept. 11 dripping tap indoctrination strategy on Sunday when he rolled out the convention’s light-motif with his speech revolving around post-Sept. 11 America. “ The speeches of Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani are sticking to that fear-based, paranoia-inducing theme.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie told the press: “How you approach the world after Sept. 11 is a factor in this election”.
With only 63 days to go, even the Republicans’ quasiofficial propaganda arm Fox News has its work cut out to persuade swing voters to give their jingoistic idol and his band of not-so-merry neocons another term in office.
The Murdoch-owned network is already priming its viewer to expect violence on New York’s streets with a steady stream of so-called Republican pundits, including a former New York police chief, who described the anticipated demonstrators as split between weirdoes and dangerous extremists, and impressionable youngsters. The NYPD knows who the troublemakers are, he added, as no doubt it does considering police officers have been seen on the streets of major US cities taking random snaps of protest march attendees.
Other Fox “experts” appear to crave the arrival of violent or disruptive protestors, representing the ideal catalyst pushing undecided voters toward the traditional conservatives.
Fox News has already flashed a list of groups the NYPD alleges are potentially violent. These are Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, the Anarchist Black Cross, The Organization and “No Police State”, along with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led, nonviolent movement of Palestinian and international activists working to raise awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom.
ISM members work with West Bank Palestinians to harvest their olives, hoping their presence will prove a moral deterrent to aggressive Jewish settlers, accompany Palestinian women visiting their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers incarcerated in Israeli prisons, and stand in front of bulldozers poised to demolish Palestinian homes. The movement is currently lobbying Congress to insist the US government conducts “a full, fair and expeditious investigation into the death of Rachel Corrie”, a young American, who fell victim to an IDF bulldozer. It is truly amazing how this group, made up of individuals of conscience opposed to violence, has made the NYPD suspect list. It maintains it is the victim of an organized pro-Israel smear campaign.
Talking about smear campaigns, according to numerous polls Whitehouse contender John Kerry is slightly trailing behind the incumbent due to a series of advertisements, designed to damage Kerry’s credibility in Vietnam, sponsored by a so-called 527 group calling itself the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. When Kerry alleged the group was coordinating with the Bush campaign, pointing out that one of the campaign’s advisors was none other than retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier, who appeared in one of the ads, Bush publicly dissociated himself from the group and Cordier “quit” his campaign. Bush was then savvy enough to praise Kerry’s Vietnam service record without directly condemning the ads, which allows him to bask in a “Mr. Nice Guy” glow — no doubt, a masterful Karl Rove touch.
Whether or not, Bush can increase his lead with the help of publicity surrounding the convention, will not only depend upon his future portfolio but also to some extent upon the behavior of the anti-Bush protestors over the next days.
In the meantime, Kerry must quit relying on his record in Vietnam and concentrate on today’s pressing issues. Critics are already saying that according to the Kerry campaign blurb, he was born, fought in Vietnam, got his chest covered with medals and then ran for president. What did he achieve during all those years in the Senate they ask and legitimately so. Now that the race to the White House is heating up, independent candidate Ralph Nader is gaining points in the polls, and is predicted to garner five percent of the votes. Many are of the opinion that a vote for Nader is a vote lost to Kerry.
Can Kerry regain lost ground is the question. Much will depend on the verbal parries of the candidates during the debates yet to come, and upon external variables. Bush will no doubt pray that Iraq settles down, the economy rises and the jobless figures dive. Kerry will carry on kissing babies while hoping that Teresa keeps a lid on her straight talking and the American voting public will suddenly succumb to his hitherto well-hidden charisma. If, in the meantime, another war was launched or America came under terrorist attack, the race is over. Out would come the Stars and Stripes. On would go the flag-pins and George W. Bush and his entourage would stay just where they are.
— Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback at [email protected]
