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Republican Party Adjourns Its Convention; Convention Dazzles, and Befuddles, Foreigners

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: In U.S. politics, the Republican Party adjourned its convention, satisfied the campaign of its nominee, Texas Governor George W. Bush, is off to the right start.

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BLITZER (voice-over): The Republican National Convention played out according to the script. Faces on the podium seem to portray a new diversity within the party, but that diversity was much less evident in the crowd on the floor.

Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell took his fellow Republicans to task on that account.

COLIN POWELL, FORMER CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: The party must follow the governor's lead in reaching out to minority communities, and particularly the African-American community, and not just during an election-year campaign.

BLITZER: The party's written policy remains strongly conservative. But the convention script presented a more moderate face, a new Republican image. Bush insisted Republicans have become the reformers.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are now the party of ideas and innovation, the party of idealism and inclusion, the party of a simple and powerful hope.

BLITZER: Using a retired general addressing the crowd from the deck of a retired battleship, the victory in the Persian Gulf War was conjured up, recalling the administration of another George Bush, and the Republicans stuck to their guns on issues like national defense.

BUSH: Our military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report "Not ready for duty, sir."

This administration had its moment. They've had their chance. They have not led. We will.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: The Pentagon Friday strongly disputed Bush's charge. KENNETH BACON, DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: ... that they are not short of spare parts, they are not short of morale, and they are not short of good leadership.

BLITZER: The Republican candidate pledged to deploy a national missile defense system as soon as possible, but offered no new details about the already controversial program.

Bush and his vice presidential nominee, Dick Cheney, made clear they're ready to attack their Democratic opponents.

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BLITZER: The Democrats, President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, have already been attacking Bush, and the Democratic convention doesn't even begin for almost two weeks.

Journalists from all over the world came to watch the convention unfold. CNN's Jonathan Mann reports on how the U.S. political process is viewed from abroad.

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JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's probably nothing in the world quite like a big, brassy, balloon-filled American political convention. More than 15,000 media people came to see the spectacle, about 1,000 of them from other countries. The ones we spoke to were impressed.

THOMAS GORGUISSIN, AL WAFD: This is like Hollywood. I mean, it's like only in America. I mean, I cannot even in Europe even imagine in Europe they would be doing something like this.

MANN: Maybe because it wouldn't occur to them. An Asian journalist who found himself at the four-day meeting that cost nearly $70 million asks...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How come you spend a lot -- such a lot of money for this convention?

MANN: American presidential hopefuls spend a lot of time, too. In Britain, where the election campaign begins and ends in just six weeks, journalists find that the one- or two-year run-up to the U.S. presidential vote exceeds the interest of the people back home.

RICHARD WOLFFE, LONDON "FINANCIAL TIMES": In other countries, the election is very concentrated in time, in particular. When did this election begin and when will it end is the answer that people all want to hear.

MANN: An American who works for a newspaper in Germany, where political conventions tend to feature serious debate rather than celebration, just does his best to explain what the fuss is all about.

PETER TAUTFEST, GERMAN NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST: It is fun. It is a pageant. It is Americans feeling good about their country and about their party, but it is also shallow, it is also without political merit. And I try to convey the ambivalence that I have myself about that.

MANN: Even for some journalists who stayed at home, the convention had the look of TV programming only distantly related to the rough and tumble of real politics.

MICHAEL WHITE, "THE GUARDIAN": And funnily enough, our party conferences have gone the same way. They're made safe for television, so safe that television doesn't want to watch them. So we kind of half recognize how you do it.

MANN (on camera): The world pays serious attention to whoever occupies the White House. But it scratches its head just a little at the way the American people choose who that person will be.

Jonathan Mann, CNN, Philadelphia.

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