American Patrol

*McCain's speech went down pretty much as predicted, though much of what I rendered yesterday in Troglodyte dialect was actually presented with a gooey outer coating of fatuous reverence and false humility. What I didn't mention, but should have, was just how badly he delivered it. McCain is a hopeless stump speaker, stepping on his own sting lines, repeating himself needlessly, and growing visibly and testily impatient when crowd reaction delayed his droning rush through his telepromptered text. Thus the campaign trope that Obama's speaking ability somehow marks him as an inferior candidate. Soon to be boring a nation, with great authenticity....

*Likewise, outside the hothouse atmosphere of the convention hall, I expect Sarah Palin's speaking style to become actively and remarkably irritating well before the month is out. This is provided she lasts that long-- without a long since prepared speech to drop her supposedly compelling personal details into, Palin strikes me as a gaffe factory in the making, her vaunted self confidence and folksy demeanor combining with her tabula rasa status on most areas of policy to make her every off the cuff remark a possible tsunami of embarrassment, and every day brings another round of those personal details that are adding up to quite a nasty picture.

So here's where the fun begins, the gloves come off, et cetera. Whoopee!!

Anyone wishing to define this year's Presidential campaign in terms of old versus new politics should have a pretty good overview of the subject after Wednesday night's session of the Republican National Convention. With Republican nomination also-rans Rudy "9/11" Giuliani and Mitt Romney setting the stage for the acceptance speech of veep nominee Sarah Palin, Wednesday went down as a red meat feast rivaling those all you can eat South American steak joints. The discerning, however, will note that said meat was carved off the same carcasses the Republican Party has been feeding off of since 1976, and was off color and stank to high heaven.

In short, the evening passed as a textbook example of old political rhetoric, with rows and rows of straw men marching through a rain of unsupported ad hominem attacks, sneering derision and belittlement, and good old bullshit. Miles of bandwidth and oceans of ink have already been devoted today to the ironies of Republicans making speeches in a stadium full of supporters deriding Barack Obama for making speeches in stadiums full of supporters, and the media that were disseminating their messages as they spoke; Republicans stalwartly running against a Washington that they were in full control of for six of the last eight years and a Washington establishment that was largely them; and Sarah Palin exploiting politically the family the McCain campaign accused the Democrats of trying to exploit politically, to name only the highlights-- I'd link you some, but you've already been there.

Instead, I'd like to note that for all the red meat flying around, there was very little beef. Instead of any inkling of what the Republicans would actually do in office, we got the same juvenile rah rah that has reduced our political process to a series of intramural scrimmages on the fields of America High (school colors, jaundice and jade) and the usual Us versus Them rhetoric that somehow never gets around to addressing We, the People.

I am writing this several hours before McCain's acceptance speech and the official end of the convention, but it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference. Anyone who couldn't have listed that speech's highlights several months ago hasn't been paying attention: taxes bad, spending bad, partisanship bad unless its our party, we tough, they pussies, make no mistake my friends, and so on and so on and blah de fucking blah. Any relationship between it and the way McCain and Company would actually govern will be purely coincidental, and any influence it could have on the prospect of McCain and Company actually getting the chance to govern almost too evil to contemplate.

As our honorable landlord points out this morning, the weird have already had plenty of excuses for turning pro this week, to wit:

*Hurricane Gustav, which provided the Republicans with all manner of goodies even as it ravaged the Gulf Coast. Anything that lets the party that partied as Katrina raged call a mulligan on their past misdeeds, indulge the sneering, sanctimonious dismissal of "partisanship" they've been beating the Democrats over the head with since Reagan, and keep Dick Cheney out of the public eye, all for the cost of a donation to the Red Cross and some light duty (but nonetheless telegenic) volunteer time away from the hot zone, has to be counted as a positive boon.

*Cable news, which went into "All Huricane All The Time" mode sometime Sunday and has barely come out this morning, thus keeping the ongoing disaster of McCain's barely experienced, dope huffing,arguably treasonouspick for Vice President muted behind several rows of wet sand bags. This is apart from the continuing freak show of the Palin daughter's pregnancy, which handily enough makes impossible the rumors of, ummm, her purported previous pregnancy, but nonetheless suggests that the Deep South got nothin' on Alaska in the gothic department.

Coming up-- the convention resumes,The Prez on Diamond Vision, and another lucky hurricane. Stay tuned, kids...