John McCain unleashed the big guns on Michael Moore last night, unleashing pent-up partisan fury on the Bush-bashing filmmaker as he sat in the hall. McCain called Moore, whose "Fahrenheit 9/11" drew unprecedented crowds for a documentary, a "disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace."
"I'm just trying to do my job," Moore said as the rabid Republicans pointed his way and booed for several minutes.
As the crowd broke out into chants of "Four more years," Moore stood, grinned and flashed an "L" sign with his fingers, meaning "loser," to the crowd jeering his presence.
He also appeared to respond "two more months"
McCain was tickled at the spontaneous reaction his comments about Moore, who is at the GOP convention writing a column for USA Today, received and exclaimed: "That line was so good, I'll use it again."
The delegates went wild, thrilled that in such a public forum they could show the filmmaker just how angry at him they are.
And while he was happy to bash Moore, McCain once again drew the line at bashing his friend John Kerry and other Democrats as he praised President Bush.
McCain focused on making prime-time peace with his party by applauding Bush's wartime leadership.
Bush "has not flinched from the hard choices," he said in an address aimed at burnishing the GOP's national security credentials. "He will not yield, and neither will we," McCain said of Bush's post-9/11 stewardship of the war on terror.
Bush "has been tested and has risen to the most important challenge of our time, and I salute him," McCain said.
But the maverick senator, who battled Bush for the party's nomination four years ago, pointedly did not join in the crowd-pleasing bashing of Kerry that was routine for other speakers on the podium.
McCain, a Vietnam POW, never mentioned Kerry, the Vietnam War or the questions that have dominated the campaign in recent weeks over whether Kerry deserved his war medals.
Instead, McCain said "my friends in the Democratic Party" assured him they are also committed to winning the war on terror, but there are differences on tactics.
"I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends," McCain said, "and they should not doubt ours."
McCain called 9/11 "the moment when the hinge of history swung toward a new era. What our enemies have sought to destroy is beyond their reach. It cannot be taken from us. It can only be surrendered."
McCain's star turn was meant to shore up the main plank in the GOP platform calling national defense a President's "most solemn duty" and affirming that "George W. Bush has kept that charge."
But McCain, along with other moderate convention headliners, has firmly opposed the platform's calls for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and Bush's restrictions on stem cell research.
McCain has also opposed the President on tax cuts and has repeatedly called for the administration to send 40,000 more troops to Iraq. But he and aides have brushed aside his differences with the administration to hone the GOP's appeal to moderates and independents.
Originally published on August 31, 2004
