A Legacy Review: My Original 40 Know Bush Facts from 2004, Part IV - THE FINALE

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"It is my great honor and privilege to nominate George W. Bush, a strong and compassionate leader, for the office of President of the United States of America."
And so started the misuse of language at the 2004 Republican Convention.

On the second day, the theme was: "People of Compassion" – but just because they use the word "compassion", over and over again, saying it doesn’t make it true.

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, "compassionate" is defined as "having or showing sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it."

In a biographical piece on Bush by Nicholas D. Kristof in the May 21, 2000 NY Times (as well as many other sources), Bush’s childhood friend, Terry Throckmorton, told of young Bush’s leadership as a boy in Texas when, in a favorite activity after a good rain, thousands of frogs would come out.

"Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them, or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up."

In 1967, as President of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale, Bush was called to task for leading a sadistic, illegal torture on new members: The tip of a wire hanger was bent to form the Greek letter Delta, heated over a flame, and then used to brand fraternity initiates in the small of the back, creating a second degree burn that left a half-inch scar.

This action got him his first interview with the NY Times when the scandal broke.

"It was no worse than a cigarette burn. . . There's no scarring mark physically or mentally."

According to the Guiness Book of Records, Texas holds the title of "U.S. State with the Most Executions," with George W. Bush signing 152 of the 244 death warrants, 40 of them in 2000, the year he first campaigned as a "compassionate conservative."

He defended his preference for capital punishment:
"I believe it sends a chilling message that there is a consequence to your actions."

Hmmm. . .

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