NEW YORK — It seems clear now that the decision to bring the
Republican convention to New York was a stroke of pure genius. All
in all, it has to be considered a victory for George W. Bush and
the Republican Party.
The president’s speech, though interrupted twice by protesters
and packed beyond sufferance with Karen Hughes’ inputs, redeemed
itself to become a good one. But for a moment or two, it seemed
that Republicans’ worst fears of insurrection might be confirmed —
there they were, right in the convention hall, eager to have their
way. And those few dark moments, which were overcome by a rousing,
positive crescendo, mirrored the emotions of the week in New
York.
On Tuesday evening, I emerged from Gotham Hall’s Republican
reception on Broadway and 36th Street and walked two blocks south
into Herald Square, 34th Street and Seventh Avenue, just a block
north of Madison Square Garden. The crowds lining the streets were
a far cry from the comparative tranquillity of Sunday’s gatherings.
When they chanted “Bush Must Go,” it sounded more like “Bush Must
Die.” Police barricades were everywhere.
It’s a truth about big cities, and New York especially, that you
can walk a few steps and find yourself in a maelstrom from which
there is no discernible escape. In this case, it didn’t seem I’d
walked more than 50 yards before I was boxed in tight on the
sidewalk, pressed in close with the rage of thousands and my own
claustrophobia.
I’ve lived in Manhattan for 13 years and attended my share of
demonstrations, but I’ve never felt the hostility that was Tuesday
evening. The crowd seemed ready to blow. People were packed so
tight on the sidewalks that those standing with backs against
buildings turned their heads to let people pass. I looked ahead of
me to 34th, and behind me to 35th, and never did a city block seem
so long. As I moved through it, looking up at the sky to remind
myself there was space, I came upon a protester with a sign I
couldn’t ignore. It quoted from the infamous August 6, 2001
security briefing warning about al-Qaeda attacks on the United
States and its caption read, “President Bush, what part didn’t you
understand?”
“So you believe in pre-emption, then?” I asked him.
“Oh, you want to mix it up?” he replied.
“Sure, let’s,” I said, and we moved within the smallest of
pockets in the crowds to hash out Afghanistan and Iraq. He was
about my age — late thirties — but he had the bug-eyed, frothy
passion of the career agitator. “Mixing it up” with me seemed to be
the action he needed in life. I did my best to speak in modulated
tones, no louder than I needed to, but it didn’t matter. He always
responded in shouts.
DURING CONVENTION WEEK a popular cry of the demonstrators was,
“This is what Democracy looks like,” but most of the time they
showed what mob behavior looks like. If I’ve learned anything from
13 years here, it’s how to spot when trouble is brewing, and so I
got out of Herald Square. Trouble did come shortly after: over 900
arrests took place later Tuesday evening, accounting for just over
half of the nearly 1,800 people arrested since the end of last
week.
The demonstrators have assaulted Republican delegates, hurled
objects at cars, and provoked police. They fulfilled at least one
of their pre-convention threats, hijacking a delegates’ bus and
forcing the police to evacuate it for the safety of the passengers.
All the while, they chanted about freedom of speech and President
Bush’s repression of same. You could call them hypocrites, or
ironists, or, if you’ve lived here long enough, just idiots.
Walking home Tuesday evening, I felt despondent by the size of
the crowds, by their contempt even for Laura Bush (many of them had
been waiting to “greet” her motorcade), and by their violent hatred
for the country. It was finally starting to get to me. Here, in the
city of 9/11, the homegrown flotsam and imported jetsam —
two-thirds of those arrested through Wednesday night were out of
state residents, according to the New York Times — seemed
to have taken over. Thankless, ahistorical, self-indulgent,
petulant, controlling, they were unworthy of the protection
lavished upon them.
But then I watched the Tuesday and Wednesday speeches: Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s, so magnificent not even the floozy act of the
Bush twins could obliterate it. The majesty and passion of Zell
Miller; the adult gravity of Dick Cheney. And Thursday, the
president himself.
BUSH AND HIS PARTY HAVE done the two things they were warned not to
do by the media and the desperate Democrats: discuss 9/11, and
attack the record of John Kerry. They’ve done it over and over
again this week. While the protesters outside discredited
themselves with deeds, the Republicans inside the Garden did them
in with words.
The original inspiration for holding the convention in New York,
to recapture the party’s identification with an embattled city,
seemed to fade away as the event approached, so tense and hostile
had the climate become. But the protesters unintentionally redeemed
the idea. By creating a non-lethal reminder of the siege mentality
that prevailed after 9/11, the Left re-created the original
inspiration for Republican identification with New York. And the
Republican response was wonderfully similar — were coming, we’re
not afraid, we’ll deal with it.
The protesters have functioned as a kind of free PR agency for
conservatism. The more infantile and destructive their rage and the
more disgraceful their provocation of the police, the country has
seen them for who they are.
What a wonderful opposition for Americans to choose from: gangs
of Leninist thugs versus the men and women of the NYPD. And then
there is the contrast between the parties. Besides all the obvious
ones, there is this: One party had the guts to take its message
into hostile territory — really hostile, trust me — and the other
was content to stay in friendly confines and preach to the
converted.
I’LL BE THE FIRST to say I hope New York doesn’t do this again
anytime soon. But I’m sure glad we did it this once, and at this
time in our history.
Imagine if the final nail in the Hate Bush crowd’s coffin is
driven in from Herald Square? That is an irony even the tone-deaf
legions of the Left wouldn’t be able to miss.
If President Bush is re-elected, we may remember the New York
convention as the lever that turned the tide, or to borrow a phrase
from 1971, “helped it in the turning.” It’s safe to say that New
York won’t soon forget the week that the Republicans came to town.
But it may be that America won’t forget it, either.
