WASHINGTON — It was supposed to be President Bush’s glory moment in his party’s spotlight, full of tributes to his eight years of leadership and cheers from grateful partisans, as he passed the mantle to his would-be successor.
Instead, Bush’s brief appearance Tuesday at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota was essentially a footnote. He got eight minutes via satellite hookup from a lonely White House podium 1,100 miles away. A Democrat turned independent, Sen. Joe Lieberman, got the showcase final speaking slot.
“I know the hard choices that fall solely to a president,” Bush told delegates, his image beamed before delegates on giant video screens in the Xcel Energy Center. “John McCain’s life has prepared him to make those choices. He is ready to lead this nation.”
Bush was well received, but it was not a rousing send-off for the man who, despite his unpopularity, somehow managed to keep Democrats confounded with his veto power and more often than not got his way.
Hurricane Gustav’s landfall early Monday forced Bush to cancel plans for a splashy convention appearance on the opening night of the GOP convention. Despite dismal approval ratings that made a Bush appearance something of a distraction or even potential problem for McCain, all this was deemed Bush’s due.
When McCain’s team scaled back the convention lineup because of Gustav, they had a chance to scale back the president’s role too.
And they took it.
Time to move forward.
Bush chose instead to reach back — to the campaign theme of national security that worked for his campaigns and those of other Republicans over the years.
“We live in a dangerous world,” Bush said. “The man we need is John McCain.” Bush didn’t mention his own record. Nor did he explicitly speak of McCain’s Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.
Instead, the president put McCain’s full-throated support of the Iraq war front and center in his pitch for the GOP senator to succeed him, and said that only McCain understands the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in a way that makes him qualified to be commander in chief.
The president referred to McCain as the “one senator above all” who backed the U.S. campaign in the Iraq war.
