Bush Is Praised as War Leader

Portraying Sen. John F. Kerry as wavering and weak, Republicans opened their national convention Monday by hailing President Bush as a leader who had made America safer and, given four more years, could extend that protection to a world shadowed by terrorism.

In a night of emotional remembrance, a few miles from the gaping scar of the demolished World Trade Center, one speaker after another depicted Bush as a man uniquely suited to a war unlike any the nation has fought.

“We need George Bush now more than ever,” said former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who capped the night with a speech recounting the searing events of Sept. 11, 2001.

“We’ll see an end to global terrorism,” Giuliani said. “I can see it. I believe it. I know it will happen.”

But the president muddied that message in an interview broadcast earlier Monday, when he was asked whether he thought the United States could win the war on terrorism.

“I don’t think you can win it, but I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world,” Bush said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.

Democrats pounced on the remark, which a White House spokesman later sought to clarify.

Kerry, vacationing at his home in Nantucket, Mass., told reporters the struggle was “absolutely” winnable. His running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, also took issue with the comment.

“I think that’s just dead wrong,” Edwards said on ABC’s “Nightline.” “And it’s the opposite of what the American people, the world and the terrorists need to hear from America’s leader right now.”

Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, may have been off the campaign trail Monday, but he never left the sights of Republicans gathered in sweltering New York.

Over and over, the Democratic nominee was depicted as wrong-headed, irresolute and wedded to the big-spending, high-taxing philosophy of the party’s liberal wing.

“My friends, we have a big choice this November,” said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican.

“Do we want the team that will keep the job-creating tax cuts in place and keep American strong? Or do we want a Kerry-Pelosi team” -- a reference to Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco -- “that is weak on the war and wrong on taxes?”

The war in Iraq, which has increasingly weighed on Bush’s reelection hopes, was described as one of the vital fronts in the war on terrorism -- one that forced the president into a difficult but necessary defensive action.

“Our choice wasn’t between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war,” said Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who shared the night’s featured billing with Giuliani.

“It was between war and a graver threat. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our political opponents and certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam’s Iraq was an oasis of peace.”

He was referring to the controversial documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” and its director and co-producer, Michael Moore.

McCain had to deliver the line twice; the first time, he was drowned out as the hall erupted in a mix of boos and cheers and whistles as Moore -- seated in the press gallery as a columnist for USA Today -- waved, smiled and lifted his arms in amused acknowledgment.

McCain referred briefly to the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that Bush had once used as the prime justification for toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

“Whether or not Saddam possessed the terrible weapons he once had and used, freed from international pressure and the threat of military action, he would have acquired them again,” McCain said. “The central security concern of our time is to keep such devastating weapons beyond the reach of terrorists who can’t be dissuaded from using them by the threat of mutual destruction.”

McCain, who has had an uneasy relationship with some more conservative elements of the GOP, was greeted politely but without great enthusiasm. But the audience quickly warmed to the senator as he threw himself wholeheartedly behind Bush, his bitter rival in the 2000 Republican race.

“We need a leader with the experience to make the tough decisions and the resolve to stick with them,” McCain said, drawing one of several sustained ovations. “A leader who will keep us moving forward even if it is easier to rest.”

Giuliani, who presided over New York for eight combative years before leaving office as a hero after Sept. 11, also defended the invasion of Iraq as a necessary step “in any plan to destroy global terrorism.”

He began his 40-minute speech by citing one of the indelible moments of Bush’s presidency: his visit to the rubble of the World Trade Center, where he grabbed a bullhorn and told a crowd of rescue workers that “the people who knocked these buildings down” would soon hear from the United States.

“Well, they heard from us,” Giuliani said. “They heard from us in Afghanistan, and we removed the Taliban. They heard from us in Iraq, and we ended Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror.”

Kerry voted to support the October 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq. But since then, he has frequently criticized Bush’s conduct of the war, claiming the president rushed to battle without bringing along U.S. allies or having a plan to “win the peace.”

Giuliani cited Kerry’s vote last fall against an $87-billion appropriation for reconstruction and troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kerry has said he opposed the legislation because he believed it should have been paid for by rolling back Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

Giuliani accused Kerry of vacillation, and contrasted his acknowledged sensitivity to nuance with “the clear, precise and consistent” vision that “sees world terrorism for the evil that it is.”

“Some call it stubbornness,” Giuliani said of the president’s penchant for seeing few shades of gray. “I call it principled leadership. President Bush has the courage of his convictions.”

“Maybe this explains John Edwards’ need for two Americas,” Giuliani said, quoting one of the candidate’s signature lines about the economic disparities he sees in the country. “One where John Kerry can vote for something and another one where he can vote against exactly the same thing.”

While Republicans rallied inside the refrigerated Madison Square Garden, there were a few scattered demonstrations on the sweltering streets outside.

Several thousand protesters walked slowly from the United Nations to the fenced-off perimeter of the convention complex to demand more federal money for housing, healthcare, education and wages for the poor. The mood was relaxed and festive, with some marchers chatting with police officers and offering them bottled water. By late Monday night, police reported a handful of arrests.

Bush, meanwhile, campaigned in a pair of swing states -- New Hampshire and Michigan -- and ignored the squall caused by his morning remarks on terrorism.

In Nashua, N.H., where two people were arrested for hurling eggs at his motorcade, Bush promoted his economic agenda, crediting his twin tax cuts with lifting the state’s economy.

“I understand how to put the conditions in place to encourage economic growth and vitality,” he said.

Amid all the pomp and speechmaking in New York, there were a few bits of formal business.

Convention delegates began the traditional roll call of the states, formally installing Bush as the party’s presidential nominee, with plans to conclude the tally on Wednesday night before a prime-time TV audience.

The delegates also adopted the party’s platform, a statement of strongly conservative values that extols Bush’s accomplishments over the last 3 1/2 years and endorses his proposed second-term agenda. The document calls for further tax cuts and changing Social Security to allow people to invest their retirement funds in personal retirement accounts.

There was also a bit of production razzle-dazzle to move things along. (But not enough to lure the national TV networks, which did not broadcast the first night of the convention.)

A choir sang military marches to accompany a video showing U.S. soldiers, fighter pilots and sailors in a fast-paced sequence of martial imagery.

Other videos featured the president’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, a bedraggled Saddam Hussein in the custody of U.S. troops, and Republican Chairman Ed Gillespie in a spoof of the opening of “Saturday Night Live,” zipping past Manhattan landmarks to the tune of a wailing saxophone.

As closely scripted as convention planners kept things inside Madison Square Garden, there were a few inevitable notes of discord on the outside.

A gay GOP organization, the Log Cabin Republicans, launched a TV ad in New York and nationally on cable channels to protest what it called “outrageous” provisions in the party platform on gay-related issues.

The platform, ratified by voice vote, supports a ban on same-sex marriage and attacks civil unions and laws providing benefits to gay and lesbian couples.

“Will we divide the American family with the politics of intolerance and fear that only lead to hate?” the commercial says. “Our choice is clear: hope, not fear.”

More broadly, one of the party’s potential 2008 presidential hopefuls, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, lamented the tenor of the increasingly nasty campaign, saying he blamed both presidential candidates.

“We are debasing our country,” Hagel said. “We are debasing our process. Politics is about inspiration. It’s about lifting people up.”

White House planners were content with the message on stage as long as the scattered signs of dissent remained outside Madison Square Garden.

While speakers including Giuliani and tonight’s headliner, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, differ with the president on such touchy issues as abortion and gay rights, those subjects never came up during the official program.

Speaking to reporters after a breakfast with the Ohio delegation, the president’s chief political advisor, Karl Rove, sidestepped the question when asked about those differences.

“If what you’re saying is there’s a diversity of views in our party, then yeah, you bet,” Rove said.

Times staff writers Nick Anderson, Edwin Chen, Michael Finnegan, Matea Gold, James Gerstenzang, Jonah D. King, Peter Wallsten and David Zucchino contributed to this report.