This Started Out To be About The Dems

But John McCain announced his running mate this morning, and it called for a change of gears and priorities. And I know that the announcement had hardly hit the airwaves when Andy Borowitz had already had his say about how Palin would remove a moose from your front lawn, but I have a slightly different set of takes.

The given availability of well-known, stalwart Republicans, time-honored, conservative defenders of the faith and proponents of neo-con brain fade that McEmptiness had to choose from (somewhere Romney is weeping and Huckabee is praying for a pestilence), this choice seems McStrange (so what else is new?). For openers, nobody knows her (do you know ANYONE from Alaska? Have you ever? It's like North Dakota, just farther away), she is (pardon the expression) no Hillary Clinton and we have no evidence that she can spell (or do anything else better) than Dan Quayle. And , like any good Repug of our time, she brings with her the taint of having perhaps played political games with hiring and firing practices, over an in-law's job with the State government. She has come from literally nowhere and brings practically nothing to the table. A Republican without a scandal of some sort is like a steak without A-1 sauce. However...

While the American people should be worried about her current qualifications and long-term liabilities, the person who should be really worried is Cindy McCain. Ms. Palin is young (44), attractive, a former pageant winner, and to some onlookers, maybe even a bit sultry. Given McCains' track record for trading in older, used models, if I were Cindy, I'd be keeping an eye on the phone logs for calls made recently to divorce lawyers. On the other hand, Cindy has all the money needed to pay the nine mortgages and ante-up for the those $500.00 loafers. (Did you hear Bill Richardson's speech? He said that McCain may wear expensive shoes but the American people are expected to pay for his flip-flops. Cute. Funny. Scary.)

The second point, and one to be taken more seriously, is that if McCain's choice of Palin, as the media portrays, is designed to lure the disaffected women voters unhappy about Hillary's loss, it is a very opportunistic move (and Palin should resent being used), and it is typically Republican and old school for a move by a self-proclaimed "maverick". But most appallingly, it is blatantly sexist. That alone should give women give reason for pause and concern about whether or not to vote for this guy. Given McCain's track record when it comes to pro-choice, right to life, abortion and Roe Vs. Wade, I find it hard to believe that Palin is standing so proudly at his side.

Oh, wait. She is a Republican. Ooops. They will do/say anything to win.

And someone else told me yesterday that another speech maker at the convention commented that for a woman to vote for McCain was like having a chicken vote for Colonel Sanders. You can make your own conjectures about McCain, foxes and henhouses.

McCain's cause was weak to begin with, and I don't think he has done himself or his party any good, or done the American people any favors by selecting Palin. If nothing else, McBlather has merely obfuscated and confused the issues, once again. At least he is consistent in that, especially in his own mind. As the flag bearer for the Republican party, this aged and aging spectacle has continued to be an embarrassment. I'm surprised he remembered what he's done, from one day to the next. What special skills does Palin have in the area of health care for seniors?

Oh. The Democrats. They had a convention this week. No surprises except perhaps for the kick-ass speech by Bill Clinton ,wherein it looks like he decided to get back in the fight. Whew. And it was a happier event than I had expected.

"The" speech: As a writer and someone not unfamiliar with essays and public presentations, I think Obama's rhetorical offering was very well done, in several respects. First of all (thank God) it wasn't too long. He gave no impression of being too full of himself. Secondly, it was eloquently and meticulously crafted. The points were made in the proper order, they were clear and well substantiated. He was appropriately lyrical for having ot face a crowd of 80,000 people, and his delivery (as well as the points he delivered) was (and were) well measured. There was no bombast, you had no exhortation to emotional, gut-wrenching anger or self-pity and only sufficient acknowledgement of the fallacies of the past eight years (and potentially the next four) to foster needed awareness, engender hope and instill confidence. If he were a student in my class, he would have gotten an "A".

And by the way, about that stage and backdrop used in the stadium: This is the one that the conservatives have been chiding for days as being "too Romanesque", or something like that? A setting which was presumptuous and implied or promoted an "emporer-like" status for Obama? Please look closely: It was very Jeffersonian, looked very much like a portico on the White House and seemed to mimic Federalism. After eight years of an emperor who has defied the Constitution, repeatedly ignored and broken laws, and paraded around without proper clothes and hasn't cared one whit about it, this casting of aspersions seems very much like a very large joke. Give me a break. If the "aspirational horizon" here was to demean or cheapen the presentation, they missed.

Back to the speech: A conservative pundit I heard the first thing this morning observed that "Obama is not a Muslim: he is a socialist". Perhaps, especially after Obama's observation that "ownership" in America, according to George Bush and John McCain, means that "You are on your own", if even you are sick, unemployed, homeless or an Iraqi or Viet Nam war vet on the street, we should think more seriously about socialism. It would not hurt for the United States, like Sweden, Switzerland, England and Germany, to name a few other civilized countries, to actually give some though to being social, and take better care of our own. This would not be unrealistic, undemocratic or beyond our capabilities. And don't give me any nonsense about"this is all big government": Homeland Security, the TSA and telecom survelillance is not big government? Don't make me laugh! (While we are on the subject of conservative pundits: Does anyone else agree with me that Joe Scarborough is a jerk and wonder why Mica puts up with his juvenille antics?)

Above all, "the speech" was immensely logical in its' approach, its' delivery and its' proposals. I don't know yet (but I can guess) what manner of linguistic baloney will come out of the Twin Cities, but I will venture this: unlike "the speech", it will all be full of hyperbole, dramatization, emotional diatribe and exaggeration. The question I am asking is, do we want this country to be led, in the next four years, by logical evaluation and measured comprehension, or by Chicken Little-like, "The Sky is Falling!" emotional extortionism?

I grew up the son of a Republican, WWII navy vet. Election after election, he voted for the very people who screwed him the most (and repeatedly)and helped him the least (and repeatedly), because what "they" proposed was easier than acknowledging the need for real compassion and sacrifice for the common good. If he were alive today, I know how he would vote, not because Barack is black but because Barack has called us to accountability and that word is not in the Republican vocabulary. Our continued existence and welfare does not revolve around lower or higher taxes: it revolves around our grasp of humanity.