May 14, 2005
A Look Back at the 2004 Republican National Convention
The election is over, but I thought I would take a few minutes to look back at part of the Republican National Convention.
Bush hugs Ashley Faulkner who lost her mother in the World Trade Center
The best segment of the 2004 RNConvention. The introduction of President Bush...narrated by Fred Thompson (this guy's voice is great for this sort of thing.)
It starts with Thomspon narrating about how Bush has a sense of humor and people who work with him can't help but open up to the man. How Bush went to the WTC area and spoke on the bullhorn to the volunteers there ("...and the people that knocked these bldgs down will hear all of us soon").
They show Bush meeting with a mother of a NYC policeman who lost her son in the world trade center. She gave Bush her son's badge, and he the nation he would keep it with him to remember all the people that bravely lost their lives that day.
Bush travels to Walter Reed Hospital to meet with injured soldiers. Bush invites a wounded soldier to join him on a run- they ran together on the South Lawn of the White House.
Finally, we see Bush making the opening pitch during the first game of the 2001 World Series in New York City.
Bush runs into Derek Jeter and the Yankee player asks him- "where are you going to throw from?" and the president replies that he never thought about it, 'I guess from the base of the mound.'"This is New York," Jeter tells him, and "in New York you throw FROM the mound..."
[The president] "was wearing a heavy secret service bullet proof vest,and he could hardly move his arms. But, he knew. So George Bush took the mound. What he did that night. That man in the arena. He helped us come back. That's the story of this presidency. With the heart of a president, he told us- you keep pitching. No matter what- you keep pitching. No matter what- you go to the game...you go to the mound...you find the plate, and you throw. And you become who you are."
(chants of USA, USA, USA, USA...from the convention hall....)
There was something very American and very patriotic about this convention. Unlike the democratic convention, which didn't have that same sense of American pride, patriotism, optimism. The Republican National Convention just made you feel proud to be an American, and proud to support the man who lead us thru it all the past 4 years.
I can't watch this segment of the convention without tearing up, because it DOES make you proud. You can't help but get the sense that Bush is a geniunely real man. A true American who loves his country and would do anything to support it. The optimism was just contagious, and you couldn't watch this without feeling that optimism yourself. That's the beauty of the party as it exists today. It's the party with a positive outlook, the party of 'yes.' The party that thinks America is its greatest when it's just simply America- the greatest country in the history of mankind.
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