Editorial: After the cheering …

Friday, Sept. 3, 2004 | 5:38 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

September 4 - 7, 2004

If Thursday night at the Republican National Convention was for heart-soaring dreams, Friday morning was for waking up to a bucket of cold water in the face. "Because we acted, our economy is growing again and creating jobs, and nothing will hold us back," President Bush said to chants of "Four more years!" The news Friday morning, however, showed we lost another 6,000 jobs when compared to population growth. Altogether since Bush has been president, the economy has lost 913,000 jobs.

Friday morning also brought a chance for sober reflection on other Bush statements, without the balloons, confetti and other convention hoopla that obscures reality. "The times in which we work are changing dramatically," Bush said at the convention, recalling when Americans were secure in their careers and retirement plans. "Today workers change jobs, even careers, many times during their lives," the president continued, giving a positive spin to lost jobs.

Bush as much as admitted he had no plan to help American workers. He spoke of providing federal funds for job training and of creating "opportunity zones" where tax incentives will attract new business. Yet federal job training programs and opportunity zones have been around for decades. His answer to the health care crisis was to create community health centers. But they, too, have been around for decades. He also railed against the right of patients to sue their doctors for malpractice, as if someone's forlorn jury award after being harmed is the root cause of the ever-diminishing quality of health care.

On education, he stressed more standardized testing. On poverty, he supported more reliance on religious charities. On terrorism he failed to mention that Osama bin Laden is still free. On Iraq he said he had to invade because Saddam refused to disarm, but didn't mention that post-war searches of Iraq have turned up no weapons of mass destruction. And when he spoke of advancing freedom "heart by heart, nation by nation," it sounded an awful lot like unrestrained imperialism.

Yes, Friday morning was a cold dash of water in the face, as all days will be as long as such policies are embraced by the president of the United States.