William Shakespeare famously wrote that “All the world’s a stage,” and after seeing the big show at the Republican National Convention this week, let there be no doubt.

The Republican stage has presented quite a show. In his speech Monday night, Sen. (and apparent film critic) John McCain of Arizona criticized filmmaker Michael Moore as “disingenuous.” Even the Terminator, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, got into the action with an enlightened piece of political discourse, calling those who didn’t like the state of the economy “economic girlie men.”

But when President Bush joins the show tonight and gives his speech accepting the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, he faces a daunting challenge.

Because the problem with big shows is that they’re just that – shows. Behind all the balloons and confetti, there’s just not much there.

For the past four years, the world has been the stage for the Bush administration. And in that time, we’ve been subjected to the greatest show on earth.

Remember when Bush donned a flight suit and strutted around an aircraft carrier with the huge “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him? He looked so cool they even made a doll out of him (really – check eBay). The only problem, of course, is that the far from “accomplished” mission continues to take the lives of American servicemen and women (more than 900 killed and 6,000 wounded to date), with no clear exit strategy or timetable in sight. Good style. No substance.

Maybe the greatest show this administration has provided has been in naming federal programs. We’ve had the “No Child Left Behind Act”; ask your old high school teachers about the substance behind that one. Many of the teachers I talk to inform me that whatever the substance is, you need a shovel to move it.

Then there’s Bush’s “Clear Skies Act,” which, according to its many critics, will result in more air pollution than if we had simply enforced the existing Clean Air Act. But you have to admit “Clear Skies” sounds way cleaner than “Clean Air.”

And then there’s everyone’s favorite. When we were being told the invasion of Iraq was to protect Americans from weapons of mass destruction, and no one – no one – possibly could have known there might not be any (wink, nudge), we didn’t get “Operation Safe America” or “Operation WMD Grab.” Nope. We got “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

And let’s not even talk about the “Patriot Act.” (Seriously, we can’t talk about it … I might get thrown in Guantanamo Bay.)

It’s a pity the optimistic geniuses in the White House in charge of naming things haven’t been around throughout our history. We’d never have had the “Prohibition Act” – it would have been the “Alcoholic Freedom Act.” Maybe the “Fugitive Slave Act” could have been called the “Slave Second-Chance Act.”

Bush’s challenge tonight will be to prove there is now substance behind his strutting style, that he isn’t just giving Americans – and the world – more empty rhetoric.

If tonight the president shows us another flight-suit speech, another collection of sound bytes about security and an economy that has “turned the corner” (when unemployment figures and the record-shattering deficits suggest more that it has “fallen off the cliff”), that small fraction of undecided voters watching the stylish show will be reminded of another quotation from Shakespeare. One in which someone tells “a tale … full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.