Onward Christian soldiers

[Khephra]

Texas state party convention coverage

By Michael Cary



Xenophobia and religion color GOP convention


Ronald Wilson Reagan's death last Saturday punctuated the adjournment of the Grand Old Pachyderms' state convention in San Antonio. The Great Conservative is dead, long live the conservatives.


Reagan, who in 1994 said in his final public speech that his two-term presidency "brought America back bigger and better," in the final analysis was a B-grade movie actor who grinned and joked his way onto the biggest stage in the nation: the U.S. presidency. His jocularity covered his lack of compassion for those who dissented from his conservative policies, and his smile masked a spirit of meanness that is the legacy of his two-term presidency in the 1980s.


Two days before President George Bush attended ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, where thousands of Americans, Britons, Frenchmen, and soldiers of other nations fought and died to break through Nazi Germany's front line, 11,000 Texas Republican delegates gathered at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center to ratify its platform leading up to the November presidential election.

Ironically, as Bush prepared to stand arm in arm with British and French leaders in Normandy, U.S. Senator John Cornyn and other Republicans took to the podium in San Antonio to bash France for refusing to contribute to Bush's invasion and subsequent war in Iraq. "We are in a fundamental conflict of what this country is and what this country ought to be. We have a president who has the courage to stand upon the world stage and defend the principles of democracy and freedom," Cornyn said.


"There are people who say 'Why can't we be like France or Germany ... ?'" U.S. Congressman Henry Bonilla told the enthusiastic crowd. "If you like those places so much, why don't you move there?"

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