Posted on 09/01/2004 9:22:30 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
resident Bush swept into New York for the Republican convention last night through the modest portal of a community center in Queens, where he met with more than 100 New York City firefighters who have come to symbolize the Sept. 11 attacks that defined his presidency.
The firefighters shouted "Four more years'' when Mr. Bush arrived with his wife, Laura, and Gov. George E. Pataki at the Italian Charities of America Hall on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst. There Mr. Bush was endorsed by New York City's main firefighters' union, the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
"The inspiration I received from the firefighters on that site is something I will never forget,'' Mr. Bush said, recalling his Sept. 14, 2001, trip to ground zero. His eyes misted up as he stood holding a black fire helmet that said "Commander in Chief.''
The president's entrance into the convention city via the multiethnic, working-class neighborhood of Elmhurst was carefully staged by his re-election campaign and designed to showcase Mr. Bush as both a man of the people and the leader who stood by the city in the days when parts of lower Manhattan lay in ruins.
Mr. Bush spoke at the community center with Bob Beckwith, the retired firefighter who stood next to him on Sept. 14 when the president grabbed a megaphone in the rubble and shouted out that the people who had knocked down the buildings would hear from the United States soon.
"He said, 'Hi, Bob,' and shook my hand,'' Mr. Beckwith said after the president had left last night. "He asked me how I was doing. And I asked him he how was doing.'' Mr. Beckwith said he last saw the president in February 2002, when he was a guest in the Oval Office.
The White House appeared to be walking a fine line between saluting the firefighters for their heroism and exploiting the tableau for Mr. Bush's campaign. Reporters, who had been alerted to the event by White House officials, were nonetheless kept outside the convention hall; only a small pool of White House correspondents was permitted inside as the president mingled with the firefighters, and then only for a few minutes.
But large-screen television sets were set up on the second floor so Mr. Bush and the firefighters could watch the convention, and footage of the president's visit was also shown inside the convention hall.
In endorsing Mr. Bush, the firefighters' union, which has 8,700 members and has been in a contract dispute with the mayor, was breaking with its parent union and most other labor groups in the nation. A year ago, the nation's main firefighters' union, the 260,000-member International Association of Firefighters, became the first large union to endorse Mr. Kerry.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg did not accompany the president. He said he was too busy to attend. "I can't be at every place the president goes," he said. "I've got a number of things to do tonight."
Soon after the president arrived, more than 40 demonstrators began chanting anti-Bush slogans and holding up signs outside. The police had confined them behind wooden barricades about a block away.
Their numbers were dwarfed by the merely curious, who also pressed up against the barricades but were allowed a little bit closer.
"I'm surprised there are so little protests," said Albert Leusink, a musician who had biked over from Woodside.
Mr. Bush arrived in New York after a rock-concert-like campaign rally of close to 20,000 people at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. The darkened hockey arena throbbed with rock music as strobe lights flashed just before Mr. Bush took his place on the stage.
"I'm here to ask for the vote," Mr. Bush said to cheers. "See, I believe you got to come to the people."
Previewing what he said would be a theme of his acceptance speech on Thursday night, Mr. Bush turned to national security and cast himself as the best person to protect America over the next four years.
"The world changed on a terrible September morning, and since that day we have changed the world," Mr. Bush said.
He then went into a explanation of his decision to go after Saddam Hussein, which never fails to elicit huge cheers from Republican crowds.
"So I had a choice to make at this point in our history," he said. "Do I forget the lessons of Sept. 11 and take the word of a madman? Or do I take actions to defend the United States? Given that choice, I will defend America every time."
Mr. Bush said again that he had no regrets about going to war with Iraq, despite the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were the administration's stated reason for war.
"Even though we did not find the stockpiles we expected to find, Saddam Hussein had the capability of making weapons of mass destruction," he said. "And he could have passed that capability on to the enemy. And that was not a risk we could afford to take after Sept. 11. Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision. America and the world are safer off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell."
White House officials said that Mr. Bush rehearsed his convention speech for two hours on a teleprompter at the White House before leaving for Ohio, and that the speech was largely finished. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, called it "optimistic and forward-looking."
Mr. Bush is to spend today in New York, at a suite in the Waldorf-Astoria, before delivering his acceptance speech.
He is to leave immediately afterward for Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where he will be positioned for two days of campaigning in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Robert F. Worth and Eddy Ramírez contributed reporting for this article.
Good to see W is in New York, visiting our firefighters, instead of windsurfing with imaginary electricians and construction workers.
Beautiful. :)
Good for Steve Cassidy, UFA Rep...too bad Peter Gorman didn't have more sense.
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