I'm soooo ashamed. I felt compelled to watch a little of the Republican National Convention last night and it was most informative.(Oh please. If Lincoln were alive , he would have been watching the Yankee game on ESPN by 8:45.)
I heard Rudy Giuliani (wearing a nice pants suit and only a little less makeup than Sarah Palin) tell me about the evils of being cosmopolitan. This from a man whose Manhattan apartment holds more people than live in Wasilla, Alaska. He attacked the "left wing media" ( there are people in America who think "left wing media" is one word) as attempting to besmirch Sweet Sarah Palin whose only sin was not wearing gingham and a bonnet to the convention. To be fair, he waited almost fifteen minutes before maneuvering his speech to the subject of 9-/11...a new personal record.
There was also Mitt Romney, another gazillionaire in a $5,000 suit, preaching about working class values and how the cynical left mocks them. I guess he meant me. Romney went on to beat all the usual drums: Democrats will tax your first born, Democrats want to make government bigger (although it's difficult to imagine how they could make government bigger than the current President) Democrats want to invite Islamic terrorists to the Super Bowl. Hell, even I'm becoming fearful of Democrats.
Even the Reverend Huckabee took a few swats at the Obama pinata. I think I changed channels when Huckabee affirmed that Democrats want abortions to be legal up until the child's first communion.
Still I came back for Sarah; or at least some of Sarah. Truth be told, she was good. If she wanted to be any more wholesome, she would have to have had her hair in pigtails and ridden in on the back of a cow. We are nothing if not a polished nation. I'm guessing that someone nixed the suggestion that she breast feed during the speech. (Exactly why is it necessary to have her four-month old at the entire convention? Probably couldn't get a sitter.) I was grateful that Ms. Palin avoided any lengthy discourse on her commander-in-chief experience. I half expected a back shot of her brandishing an AR-15 at the head of the Alaska National Guard, staring down the Russkies from across the Behring Sea. I missed the end, but I'm quite sure that God got at least one mention.
Republicans, as we all know, are the low tax, small government, big defense, keep government out of your life party. So explain how, in election after election, the party of the super rich purports to represent the working class. Incidentally, one supposes that there aren't many black working class Americans if one is to judge by the faces of color in Minneapolis this week. But I digress.
Republicans are nothing if not successful, powerful leaders in all fields of endeavour. In other words, the elite. It is therefore fascinating that, in the vernacular of the GOP, elite is such a dirty word. I'd like to be called elite. (I'd like to be called anything beside asshole!) These guys are rich (except for Sarah Palin). They run the sweatshops in the Philippines; the insurance companies that deny your uninsured surgery; the giant agri-businesses that import slave labor from Mexico and companies like Wal Mart employing thousands of under-insured workers.What, in God's name, would make anyone think they have working class America's interest at heart? These are the exploiters. Run away! Be afraid...be very afraid.
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