The Elephant Strikes Back
It seems the Republican Party doesn’t like to have their dirty laundry aired in public. They’d like to keep their dirty little secrets just that - dirty, little, and secret. Can't say as I blame 'em. Could be they don't like people prying into other's private lives[1]. Or could be they're not keen on looking like a criminal gang of hypocrites. But hey, isn't this the party of Harding, Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, and W? I say it's common knowledge by this point.
Perhaps I should have waited to post my first dispatch until after the convention. Or maybe I should be grateful that my spurious press pass was revoked. It saved me from the bitter struggle of attempting to stay upright and awake during a triple threat onslaught of George W. Bush, Jumping Joe Lieberman, and Fred Thompson. Any one of 'em serves up a heavyweight bout of boredom. All three in quick succession could very well be fatal.
I ended up watching the speeches on TV in a local sport's bar, Malina’s, a scene of much local interest in recent weeks. Seems a young patron started trouble with the wrong guy and ended up with a shiv in his gullet. Nobody’s been arrested, the cops suspect the regulars are protecting one of their own. Happens all the time on the Range. C'est la vie. My advice: don't kick shit you can't carry.
Malina’s was the closest thing I could get to a sense of danger in a town that’s more locked down than Leavenworth. And even that was weak by most standards. Had I yelled out my support for Obama, I would have had to fight my way out of there. I decided to keep my mouth shut and bellied up to the bar, praying for CSPAN. I got FOX NEWS, and quickly realized that a bar is not just the best place to enjoy a Republican Convention, it's the ONLY place.
I got into it pretty good. So much so that I was able to laugh at that lame duck when he quacked about the "angry left" with his trademark murderous contempt. By the time "Traitor Joe" took the stage, I was less focused on his "maverick blah blah blah" than I was on his shocking resemblance to Droopy. Juvenile, I know, but so is the whole Republican political agenda. And maybe it was the Beast playing tricks on me, but I swear to God when I closed my eyes during the Fred Thompson speech, I thought that TV's Dr. Phil was addressing the rabid Republican hoard.
Another cheap smile, perhaps, but one much needed in a world where a McCain-Palin ticket is considered anything more than the whispy death throe of a once-powerful tyrant.
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[1] Except, of course, in public policy that dictates Governmental involvement in a woman’s most private decision and a gay couple’s civil rights.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
TAKING AIM AT THE RNC - DISPATCH 1
There’s a dangerous air in St. Paul. I’m not talking about chemical leaks from the local 3M plant, I’m talking about a sickening nervous energy that’s pulsing through “America’s most livable city.” It’s my first day at the RNC, and despite the fact that I saw a female journalist dragged Cro-Magnon style by the cops; this is far from a conventional GOP convention.New York in 04 was the real deal. In a previous dispatch, I talked about the GOPoPPP, and the Manhattan convention was the ultimate expression of the “say one thing/do another” social club. Take, for example, Club Liberal[1], a once-respectable Midtown hangout transformed by party officials into the definitive late night right-wing fetishfest. After hours of speeches about family values and morals all peppered with racism and a not-so-healthy dose of gay-panic, young male wonks could retire to the Bacchanalian backrooms of Club Liberal and indulge in every "sinful" behavior they spent all day protecting America from. Drugs, sex, violence. Stick your prick into one of those holes in the wall…someone will be there to suck it. Have to take a piss? Retire to one of the restroom’s infamous “shower stalls.” So many images remain burned in my brain to this day, but by far the most sickening was the main event on night two…Sticking it to the Big Apple. The “Big Apple” in question was an overweight Puerto Rican prostitute in a too-tight, crotchless red teddy. I’ll leave it your imagination how many times she had it “stuck to her,” but I think it’s safe to say she didn’t walk home that night. Club Liberal was far crazier than the Limelight at its heyday, far more sinister too…a surreal experience made all the more surreal by the knowledge that these guys were aspiring right wing power brokers by day.
There’s nothing like Club Liberal this year in St. Paul. Nothing I’ve been able to weasel my way into, at least. But I was able to weasel my way into the Xcel Energy Center to witness First Lady Laura Bush’s speech. Less than four minutes by my watch, and nearly every second of it devoted to the Gulf Coast and the Hurricane. The line that struck me to the core: “our first prioty now, today, is to ensure the safety and the well being of those living in the Gulf Coast region.” There was plenty of respectful applause, and I was pretty sure that at least ninety percent of the audience missed the horrible irony of that statement...something more despicable than any of the goings-on at Club Liberal.
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[1] The name of the real place has been changed to protect the guilty.
[1] The name of the real place has been changed to protect the guilty.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
MCCAIN GIVES BIRTHDAY GIFT TO DEMS
Just what do you give an opposing campaign that has everything?
The response from the Obama-Biden camp: "Thank you, Johnny. You shouldn't have."
The response from the Obama-Biden camp: "Thank you, Johnny. You shouldn't have."
TAKING AIM AT THE DNC
They say politics is local. So you’d better believe I was hunkered down in Denver this past week as that great blue tidal wave crashed down upon the mile high city. I was planning on sending a series of dispatches as the Democratic Convention progressed. After my first minute-and-a-half inside the Pepsi Dome[1], I scratched that idea. I make this personal pledge to you, my dear readers, the day you see within these pages my in-depth coverage of a Mark Warner speech is the very day I turn my own rifle on myself.
As a rule, political conventions are dead dull. Especially those held by the Democrats. I hate to say this, but if you’re looking to get down and dirty, you don’t chase the liberal donkey, you follow the path of the raging red elephant. The Republican Party has long been a “do as I say, not as I do” in-crowd. Those in the know call it the GOPoPPP – the Grand Ole Party of Perverts, Pederasts, and Panty-sniffers. Nothing at a Dem Convention can come close to the Gomorrahan depths of depravity that pass for status quo at the Republican bash. Yet on that base level, this Denver convention will always be about that curly haired young lady with a different Holly Golightly dress for every night of the week. If you’re reading this, Shelley, we’ll always have the RFK Memorial.
But I digress. Back to the boredom. The DNC – the convention of Greenpeace, not golden showers. The floor of the Pepsi Center was littered each day with a bunch of young policy wonks, sporting their bad haircuts and ill-fitting suits, talk-talk-talking about everything yet acting upon nothing. They’re tomorrow’s pols in training. It’s hard to fault them. After all, it’s the way of nature. These wonks are not unlike any other ape…obeying the rules of society as defined and directed by the silverbacks that came before them.
Of course, this is a different kind of convention for a different kind of candidate. And as such, there were only two seismic events that registered this as a “change” convention. The first, the speech of Sen. Hillary Clinton. Hillary, a silverback Dem if ever there was one, finally did the right thing. Realizing a Darwinian shift has occurred in her party, she willingly conceded to the next evolution of Democrat. And she did it with aplomb. It was not only the most important speech of her political career, it was her finest.
As expected, the most important event of the convention was the acceptance speech of Sen. Barack Obama. Standing there, at the 30-yard line at Mile High Stadium, I was moved by the furious sense of desperation throughout the house. These people need Obama like the air they breathe, and I’d be willing to wager that sense of necessity resonated throughout the country. Finally, a Democrat stood up against the Rove cabal and held a mirror to the gruesome, disfigured policies and tactics that have torn this country to pieces in the past decade. What’s more, Obama stood strong, proud, and ready to lead. For the first time, I felt his election was inevitable. Old McCain might as well give up the ghost, because change is coming to Washington.
On the way out of Invesco, I bumped into Pat Buchanan, a former Nixon speechwriter and Presidential hopeful who now sells his punditry to MSNBC. He commented that he liked my hat. Thanks Pat, but what do you think about Obama?
“I think the Rove era has finally met its end.”
I agree with Buchanan. It was only a matter of time. Karl Rove is a power broker, not a patriot. And in times like these, it takes a patriot. For more than once, the flame of America’s promise has nearly been extinguished. And in those last flickering moments, when the glow has just about gone gray, a true leader has always risen to the challenge, by luck or by destiny, to breathe oxygen onto the embers and nurse the flame back to life. Abraham Lincoln was one such man. Franklin D. Roosevelt, another. Tonight, Barack Obama didn’t just blow air on the embers, he poured gasoline on the mother fucker! In doing so, he renewed the very definition of patriotism, snatching it back from the withered, dying grasp of the GOP who once wielded the word like a blunt instrument.
It was a night of historic significance. Forty-five years after Dr. King spoke of his dream, an African American man stood on stage to accept his party’s nomination for President of the United States. Obama represents a change that runs far deeper than the reversal of George W. Bush’s failed policies. He represents the first small step toward the colorblind ideal that King died dreaming about. I've said it before and I'll say it again - America needs Barack Obama.
In the coming weeks, I’m sure my enthusiasm will subside as I watch John McCain attack like a stubborn old soldier, performing the same Rove-era divide/conquer strategies to paint Obama as a dangerous threat to the status quo. But in these moments, let’s not forget that it is the status quo itself that threatens. In this moment, to quote the great change candidate of the last century, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Good night, Denver. Good night, America. Tomorrow I ride for Minneapolis/St. Paul.
__________________________________________
[1] A political convention with “brought to you buy” corporate sponsorship…hardly a solid signifier of change we can believe in.
As a rule, political conventions are dead dull. Especially those held by the Democrats. I hate to say this, but if you’re looking to get down and dirty, you don’t chase the liberal donkey, you follow the path of the raging red elephant. The Republican Party has long been a “do as I say, not as I do” in-crowd. Those in the know call it the GOPoPPP – the Grand Ole Party of Perverts, Pederasts, and Panty-sniffers. Nothing at a Dem Convention can come close to the Gomorrahan depths of depravity that pass for status quo at the Republican bash. Yet on that base level, this Denver convention will always be about that curly haired young lady with a different Holly Golightly dress for every night of the week. If you’re reading this, Shelley, we’ll always have the RFK Memorial.
But I digress. Back to the boredom. The DNC – the convention of Greenpeace, not golden showers. The floor of the Pepsi Center was littered each day with a bunch of young policy wonks, sporting their bad haircuts and ill-fitting suits, talk-talk-talking about everything yet acting upon nothing. They’re tomorrow’s pols in training. It’s hard to fault them. After all, it’s the way of nature. These wonks are not unlike any other ape…obeying the rules of society as defined and directed by the silverbacks that came before them.
Of course, this is a different kind of convention for a different kind of candidate. And as such, there were only two seismic events that registered this as a “change” convention. The first, the speech of Sen. Hillary Clinton. Hillary, a silverback Dem if ever there was one, finally did the right thing. Realizing a Darwinian shift has occurred in her party, she willingly conceded to the next evolution of Democrat. And she did it with aplomb. It was not only the most important speech of her political career, it was her finest.
As expected, the most important event of the convention was the acceptance speech of Sen. Barack Obama. Standing there, at the 30-yard line at Mile High Stadium, I was moved by the furious sense of desperation throughout the house. These people need Obama like the air they breathe, and I’d be willing to wager that sense of necessity resonated throughout the country. Finally, a Democrat stood up against the Rove cabal and held a mirror to the gruesome, disfigured policies and tactics that have torn this country to pieces in the past decade. What’s more, Obama stood strong, proud, and ready to lead. For the first time, I felt his election was inevitable. Old McCain might as well give up the ghost, because change is coming to Washington.
On the way out of Invesco, I bumped into Pat Buchanan, a former Nixon speechwriter and Presidential hopeful who now sells his punditry to MSNBC. He commented that he liked my hat. Thanks Pat, but what do you think about Obama?
“I think the Rove era has finally met its end.”
I agree with Buchanan. It was only a matter of time. Karl Rove is a power broker, not a patriot. And in times like these, it takes a patriot. For more than once, the flame of America’s promise has nearly been extinguished. And in those last flickering moments, when the glow has just about gone gray, a true leader has always risen to the challenge, by luck or by destiny, to breathe oxygen onto the embers and nurse the flame back to life. Abraham Lincoln was one such man. Franklin D. Roosevelt, another. Tonight, Barack Obama didn’t just blow air on the embers, he poured gasoline on the mother fucker! In doing so, he renewed the very definition of patriotism, snatching it back from the withered, dying grasp of the GOP who once wielded the word like a blunt instrument.
It was a night of historic significance. Forty-five years after Dr. King spoke of his dream, an African American man stood on stage to accept his party’s nomination for President of the United States. Obama represents a change that runs far deeper than the reversal of George W. Bush’s failed policies. He represents the first small step toward the colorblind ideal that King died dreaming about. I've said it before and I'll say it again - America needs Barack Obama.
In the coming weeks, I’m sure my enthusiasm will subside as I watch John McCain attack like a stubborn old soldier, performing the same Rove-era divide/conquer strategies to paint Obama as a dangerous threat to the status quo. But in these moments, let’s not forget that it is the status quo itself that threatens. In this moment, to quote the great change candidate of the last century, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Good night, Denver. Good night, America. Tomorrow I ride for Minneapolis/St. Paul.
__________________________________________
[1] A political convention with “brought to you buy” corporate sponsorship…hardly a solid signifier of change we can believe in.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
COUP D'ÉTAT?
With Mark Penn's recent praise for McCain's desperate attack-ad campaign, Bill's decision to speak at the DNC, and Hillary's assertion that her delegates should be counted, one can't help but wonder if we're in for a Clintonian coup d'état. I hope all those happy delegates pack their ponchos, because I think they may be in for a bloodbath.
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