Matt Ortega

President George W. Bush will speak on the first night of the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. Jonathan Martin of the Politico remarked:

And that will almost surely be the last we hear of him in the Twin Cities.

New York Times:

In St. Paul, Mr. Bush will speak on the convention’s opening night, said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary — a tiny bit of news from an administration that typically keeps a close hold on the president’s schedule. The White House and the McCain campaign said the details were still being worked out. But one Republican close to Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the president would give “an important speech” but that a joint appearance was “highly unlikely.”

There is no doubt that figures like those released by Gallup recently that showed the American people “concerned” that Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) is too similar to President Bush — a third Bush term — played some role in that decision.

The convention starts September 1 and concludes on September 4.

In an unrelated food for thought, New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote:

The last time Republicans dealt with the passing-of-the-torch question, in 1988, the circumstances were very different. President Ronald Reagan was surging in popularity, and the big fear was that he would overshadow the nominee, the first George Bush, at the convention in New Orleans. So their aides worked out a plan intended to let Mr. Reagan “give oomph to the Bush candidacy,” without stealing the show, said Kenneth W. Duberstein, Mr. Reagan’s chief of staff. [emphasis added]

Duncan Black noted, however, that polling numbers at the time of the Republican National Convention in August 1988 — and nearly for the entire year for that matter — did not show any such “surge.”

Job Performance Ratings for President Reagan

Alberto Gonzales, the disgraced former attorney general, penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times about the presidential election and the Latino vote.

Gonzales addresses critical issues to the Latino community — particularly, immigration and equality — but given his shameful track record as the President’s lackey and partisan hack, he is an ill-chosen messenger.

Finally, although we know that America strives to be a fair country, the harsh reality is we are not one nation with liberty and justice for all. And yet equal opportunity — to a job, to capital and to credit — is a cornerstone of American success. The promise of equal opportunity is what drew our parents and grandparents and what still draws immigrants to the U.S., and it is what firmly knits them into the country once they are citizens.

It would be an understatement to scoff at this paragraph as simply an empty platitude and pathetic attempt by Gonzales to reinvent himself as a champion of Latino issues.

Under the stewardship of Gonzales, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department deteriorated to abysmal levels. The office designed to protect the rights of minorities was turned into an instrument of disenfranchisement and partisan politics.

Bradley Schlozman, the former head of the Civil Rights Division, consistently overruled experienced lawyers, including the Georgia voter ID law, the Texas redistricting gambit spearheaded by former Congressman Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land, Tex.), and attempts to cut down the voter rolls in Missouri, a critical swing state. Schlozman is currently under investigation for perjury by a federal grand jury.

The complicity and blatant dishonesty of the former attorney general in the partisan firings of eight Unites States attorneys is just the tip of the iceberg and the least shameful of the Gonzales scandals.

Gonzales, then-White House Counsel, was involved in the illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of millions of Americans without warrants and the use of national security letters to conduct searches. By the time the unlawful program surfaced in the press, Gonzales was leading the Department of Justice, and the attorney general’s testimony was contradicted by several credible witnesses, including FBI Director Robert Mueller and the former Acting Attorney General James B. Comey.

In early 2007, Gonzales argued before the Senate Judiciary Committee that habeas corpus was not granted in the United States Constitution.

Gonzales’ most shameful of acts was his involvement in the administration’s usurpation of the Geneva Conventions and the introduction of American-led torture against detainees after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. With that 2002 memo, Gonzales lowered the collective response of the American people to once unimaginable levels of inhumanity.

The former attorney general has brought great shame to himself and the Latino community. By his own admission, Gonzales writes he “cannot speak for all Latinos.”

For once, he is correct.

In the end, Senator McCain and President Bush are like two sides of the same coin, and it doesn’t amount to a whole lot of change.

–Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York)
(Associated Press, 06/27/08)

Take the Bush-McCain Challenge. Can you tell them apart?

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) tried to counter charges from Democrats that his candidacy is offering a third Bush term in the infamous Green Monster Speech. Unfortunately for John McCain, he argued about his strident support for President Bush three years ago. Since that interview, according to Congressional Quarterly, McCain sided with the President 89 percent (2006), 95 percent (2007) and 100 percent (2008) of the time in the U.S. Senate.

Not a whole lot of “distance” there.