Weekly Shredder 5:
Bush Speech in Springfield, Missouri
by Stephen Himes

Springfield, Mo., is the home of Attorney General John Ashcroft and Majority House Whip Roy Blunt. It's been solidly Republican for at least a generation. In fact, it's such a safe haven for the GOP that the day after President Bush takes a beating, they send him here. The day after his bumbling Tim Russert interview, Air Force One roared into Springfield-Branson Municipal Airport, and the motorcade carried Bush to an engine rebuilding plant for an "economics" speech.

The strategy: The Springfield crowd will close his wounds like a boxer's cut-man before he's thrust back into the political ring. The president and Vice-President Dick Cheney are down here so much that it's hardly news anymore. Bush has been to this town of 175,000 20 times as president. Ho-hum, there's W. again, tying up traffic around Bass Pro.

The Republicans have made it no secret that they're counting on Southwest Missouri to win this vital swing state for them. Kerry will win in such traditional blue areas as Kansas City and St. Louis, and Bush will win the rural vote.

For a long time, the urban/rural split was about 50/50, but as the St. Louis suburbs have grown and become more Republican, the state has tilted Red. Bush has targeted St. Charles County right outside of St. Louis to offset the gains Kerry has made in the cities, leaving Southwest Missouri to carry the day. Right now, Kerry and Bush are dead even in Missouri, with some polls showing Kerry with a slight lead. That's why the president and Dick Cheney are here every other week.

For archives, audio, and background about the column, click here.

But something strange is happening down here. The big news during Cheney's last visit to the downtown convention center was the unusually high number of protesters. The Democrats have even found a real challenger, local attorney Jim Newberry, for the powerful Roy Blunt (whose son Matt is running for governor). Unprecedented amounts of money are pouring into Democratic causes down here. Internal polling done by both parties is putting Kerry and Bush 50/50 — in Springfield.

The Republicans know that if they can't carry the Springfield-Branson area comfortably, they're in real trouble in this state, which has voted with the presidential winner ever time (save one) in the last century.

The morning after John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, President Bush addressed about 3,000 supporters at Springfield's new Hammons Field. The place was only half-full, with a throng of protesters outside, some of whom were arrested and had their tickets to the event ripped up by officials.

Listening to the president's speech, it's easy to see why so many Show-Me Staters are becoming wary of Republican leadership. The divide between rich and poor is very deep here in SWMO, people are unhappy about the war, and the economy doesn't seem to be "turning the corner." A few of the president's remarks in his 47-minute speech are especially telling.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The heart and soul of America is found right here in Springfield, Missouri.

Yes, it's true. It's 97.3 percent white. We're the home of more unsolved murders per capita than anywhere in the United States. Second-highest number of fast food restaurants per capita in the United States (behind Owensboro, Ky.). We invented cashew chicken, which is simply deep-fried chicken chunks drenched in MSG syrup.

We have the sixth-lowest cost of living of any metropolitan area in the nation. Our southside Wal-mart Supercenter is the most profitable Supercenter in the country, and was also the site of a celebration for selling the most duct tape of anyplace in the United States. The town's last lynching in 1906 still hovers over the downtown area (the 2002 hanging of a Kenyan man might not have been a suicide, as the police claim).

We gave you the original Bachelor, Aaron Buerge. The Federal Medical Center is at the corner of Sunshine Street and Kansas Expressway and has housed Gen. Manuel Noriega, John Gotti (who died there two years ago), Jeffrey Dahmer and Timothy McVeigh, among others. The Trinity Broadcasting Network started here. Jerry Falwell went to school at Baptist Bible College on Kearney Street. Faith healer Benny Hinn's wife went to Evangel University, which named its basketball arena after John Ashcroft. We're the home of the International Headquarters of the Assembly of God Church.

This is all you need to know about the heart and soul of Springfield, which according to the president is the heart and soul of America: This is where Jimmy Swaggart chose to cry on the pulpit and confess to those blowjobs in New Orleans.

Oh yeah, Jim Bakker currently has his own broadcast TV show in Branson.

BUSH: I'm sorry Laura is not here — I know you are, too. (Laughter.) You probably wish she was speaking, and not me. (Laughter.) She is a great first lady. (Applause.) Today you'll hear some reasons why I think you need to put me back into office. But perhaps the most important reason of all is so that Laura will be first lady for four more years. (Applause.)

This is fair. Teresa would not go over well here in Springfield.

BUSH: Can't help but notice my friend Johnny Morris is here. Gosh, I wish we were fishing. (Laughter.) I was in the Bass Tracker, I want you to know, over the weekend in Crawford. It didn't sink. (Laughter.) Great to see you, friend. Thanks for coming.

The last time President Bush was in Springfield (the day after the Russert interview), 40 miles away in the small town of Aurora, Mo., Staff Sgt. James Douglas "Doug" Mowris was buried after being killed in an explosion in Afghanistan.

Not that the president should have necessarily attended the funeral (though that would have been an extraordinary gesture), but Bush didn't even mention the man's name or otherwise acknowledge him during his visit. This, especially when his appreciation for the armed forces is under attack from experts who say he's overextended the military, and his own service to the US military is under intense scrutiny.

Instead of attending that funeral in Aurora, or at least meeting with Mowris' wife and family, President Bush was gone fishin' to look for rods and reels at Bass Pro Shops (which, incidentally, is owned by Bush family friend and donor John Morris, the man Bush pointed out at Hammons Field).

A local TV station captured the photo op that defines Bush's current problems in places like Springfield: Outside the exit of the Bass Pro Shops is a giant arching sign the reads "Liars Club" — as in a Big Fish story, where you can get your picture taken next to a giant bass. While those in Aurora mourned, President Bush walked out of the Bass Pro Shop and stood right under that sign, smirking and waving as the Secret Service opened his limo.

BUSH: We have more to do to make America's public schools the centers of excellence we all know they can be, so that no child is left behind in America. When we came to office three-and-a-half years ago, too many of our children were being shuffled from grade to grade, year after year, without learning the basics. We're challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations. We've raised the bar. We're setting high standards. We're focusing on results. We're insisting on accountability. We're empowering parents. We're making sure local folks are in charge of schools. And, today, children across America are showing real, substantial progress in reading and math. (Applause.) When it comes to improving America's public schools, we are turning the corner and we're not turning back. (Applause.)

A short word about the "tough standards" of the No Child Left Behind Act. Bush touts NCLB as "making schools accountable" for low test scores. To a certain extent it does, but NCLB also requires every public school in the nation to have 100 percent passing rates in all subjects by 2014.

This is impossible; the only way to meet these insane numbers is to set the bar so low that everyone passes. In effect, the high school diploma will be so devalued, more than it already is, that it'll be worth as much as an Iraqi dinar with Saddam Hussein's face on it.

This has already happened in progressive states like Missouri, where the Democratic then-Gov. Mel Carnahan (now know as "the dead guy who beat Ashcroft") instituted the A+ Schools Act, which takes a holistic approach to evaluating schools. Test scores are only a part of the evaluation, so the proficiency level was set rather high. Already, the state legislature passed a bill to cut the number of evaluation levels from five to four — essentially, lowering the proficiency standard to give our students a shot to match the arbitrary numbers of NCLB.

It hasn't raised standards, and it won't; instead, it will force them down. Missouri educators already know this; it's happened to us.

BUSH: We've expanded community health centers for low-income Americans. We've created health savings accounts so families can save, tax-free, for their own health care needs. When it comes to giving Americans more choices about their own health care and making health care more affordable, we are turning the corner and we're not turning back. (Applause.)

Does the president realize that he's adopted Herbert Hoover's catchphrase from the 1920s? Does he realize that low-income families don't have enough money to "save" for catastrophic illnesses? Does he realize that senior citizens are deserting him in droves because the new Medicare plan — a blatant, nonsolving pander in the first place — is confusing and just doesn't work?

At this point, the president transitions to the Red Meat: The War on Terrorism. He has said that he won't, and doesn't, exploit the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001, for political purposes. In upholding this pledge, he uses the phrase "Sept. 11" no less than 12 times in about 5 minutes. Then, he slips in this rhetorical trick:

BUSH: When he continued to deceive the weapons inspectors, I had a decision to make: to hope for the best and to trust the word of a madman and a tyrant, or remember the lessons of September the 11th and defend our country. Given that choice, I will defend America every time.

You see, September 11th and Saddam are linked. He doesn't say that here (only Cheney still maintains this in his public speeches), but he frames an either/or construct as a choice between "remember(ing) the lessons of September the 11th" and not "defending our country" from a "madman."

To him, Iraq and Al Qaeda are part of the same war, when little evidence exists — according to the 9/11 commission — to support the claim. In other words, he says it without saying it. The true believers are given license to truly believe that Saddam was involved directly in Sept. 11.

BUSH: We will keep our commitment to help Afghanistan and Iraq become peaceful, democratic societies. These two nations are now governed by strong leaders. They're on the path to free elections. More and more people in Afghanistan and Iraq are stepping up to secure their own country from these killers. They understand the benefits of a free society. Moms and dads in Afghanistan and Iraq want their children to grow up in a peaceful world, and so do we. (Applause.)

Well, the British are warning that Afghanistan may soon fall back into the hands of the Taliban, the elections are being delayed again, and the "strong leader" Hamad Karzai is little more than the mayor of one part of Kabul. Intelligence is also reporting the Al Qaeda terrorist training camps are back in business along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan has been neglected in favor of Iraq, which has destabilized the region, allowed Al Qaeda to regroup, and ultimately threatened our security. It's gotten so bad that Doctors Without Borders is pulling out.

Remember: These are people who've battled Ebola.

They blame Karzai's government for not being more aggressive in tracking down the murderers of five aid workers in June, and say humanitarian aid has become politicized, thus endangering their workers. As for the Iraqis "stepping up to secure their own country," hundreds of Iraqi police have been killed in the last few months, indicating that the country is nowhere near ready for self-rule.

From here, the president segues into attacking John Kerry. He contrasts his "resolve" portrayed in the Sept. 11 allusions to Kerry "flip-flopping" — the subtext is strength vs. weakness, macho vs. effete. Bush employs the now-familiar Kerry verbal gaffe for laughs:

BUSH: He tried to explain his vote by saying: I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it. (Laughter.) End quote. He's got a different explanation now. One time he said he was proud he voted against the funding, then he said the whole thing was a complicated matter. (Laughter.) There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat. (Applause.)

Kerry stood on principle here. He did vote for the money when the bill (drafted by Sen. Joseph Biden) read that the $87 billion would come from the tax cuts to the wealthy. Bush threatened to veto the bill unless it was re-written, which is what ended up happening.

This bill, the one that added to the budget deficit, is the one Kerry voted against. Bush, even though his budgets don't include the costs of Iraq operations, exploits his own fiscal irresponsibility for a cheap shot and some laughs.

As the American optimist the son of a president can afford to be, Bush doesn't want to get too hung up on negative attacks. He accelerates into the "It's a time of amazing change" portion of the speech by, again, recalling Herbert Hoover:

BUSH: We're going to make it clear his prescription for America is the wrong medicine. (Applause.) We're not turning back to the old days, the old Washington mindset that says they will give the orders, you will pay the bills. We've turned a corner from that way of thinking, and we're not turning back. (Applause.)

Thing is, George, the fact that you're speaking in a half-empty stadium in a town that for a generation has been a Republican stronghold, one that you're counting on to win the election, had to rattle you in the homestretch of this speech. After all, two of your biggest guns are from this little burg.

One has become a national punchline, and the other is facing the only tough race in his political life; yesterday, Blunt cancelled a campaign tour of Greene County farms because of dogged protesters.

You're running 50/50 in the "heart and soul" of the Republican Party. I don't think it's this economy, President Bush, that's turned the corner. The Democratic Party in Southwest Missouri has turned the corner. You've turned so many people cynical that in a place like the Show-Me State, even the staunchest allies demand results if you want to win their vote. You've opened the door for the Washington Generals of American Politics, Springfield Democrats, to knock you right out of this election.

We've got a fireplug, straight-talking candidate against your House Whip, and the local party has convinced the nationals that a couple of appearances by John Edwards might swing the area in their favor. Not the 40 percent "moral victory" they usually shoot for, but actually winning the damn thing. Mr. President, you know you can't win Missouri without SWMO, and it had to have run through your mind as you stared into those empty seats that something's wrong here. It's the Democrats who've turned the corner, and you have no one to blame but yourself.

BUSH: None of us will ever forget that week when one era ended and another one began. September the 14th, 2001, I stood in the ruins of the Twin Towers. It's a day that I will never forget. I remember the workers in hard hats yelling at me, "Whatever it takes." I remember a fireman or a policeman, I can't remember which one, looking me in the eyes and saying, "Do not let me down." As those folks did that day, and like many other Americans, we took it personally. I took it personally. I have a responsibility that goes on. I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes. (Applause.)

You can't run on this forever, Mr. President. Remember when you had to stop running that commercial featuring a few seconds of rubble footage? People don't want to remember that; they want to know what you're going to do in the future. This entire speech plays to the fears of the past, not the hopes of the future. Missourians can smell a bullshitter, Mr. President, and I don't think you're fooling anybody around here anymore. It just might cost you Southwest Missouri.

E-mail Stephen Himes at stephenhimes@hotmail.com.

— graphic by Derek Evernden (derek@ocellus.net)