Matt does a job on the entire Iraq section of the speech – it turns out that just about every syllable that wasn’t meaningless was false — but he’s especially good on the $87 billion:
The president proposed $87 billion in funding for the troops and for reconstruction. John Kerry voted for a proposal to finance this by rescinding some of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
The president said that if such a bill passed, he would veto it. Kerry said that if the bill came up without the amendment, he would vote against it.
So Kerry’s position is this — we should only spend the money if we have the money to spend in our treasury. Bush’s position is this — we should only spend the money if doing so does not imperil the fortunes of the highest income Americans; moreover, I plan to use this as a bludgeon with which to beat up my political opponents by lying about their records.
We’ve seen a few vile smears in this speech and a few lies — now we have the quintessential Bushian moment, a lie in the service of a vile smear. It’s a smear that, moreover, was repeated over and over and over again throughout the disgusting display that was the Republican National Convention.
Fact Check on Bush’s Acceptance Speech
Matthew Yglesias does a nice fact check on Bush’s Acceptance Speech.