Palin's Speech: "A Rhetorical Lynching"

Are these grown humans? Or am I living on Planet Ass? What was this queasy feeling listening to the Republican National Convention speeches Wednesday night?

If felt like witnessing a lynching. A rhetorical lynching.

In his speech, a jocular former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani cracked himself up so hard, in labeling Sen. Barack Obama a mere "community activist," that he had to stop for air. The floor of Republican delegates joined in with gleeful whoops, sneers, jeers, hollers, snorts and cackles.

The collective ganging up reminded me of the fictive horror of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." What's more scary - the act of the first stone tossed? No. It's the rest of them joining in.

Or something -- very gladiatorial.

I'm an agnostic, but I almost wished that Jesus would choose this moment to come back and glide across the floor of the Republican Convention to zap the cacklers with a poof to hell. Take that, tossers of stones to glass houses!

In her insubstantive speech, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle didn't even bother to mention John McCain but at the very end, like a side note. Having drunk the Palin-aid, she talked up her assets with zingers like "you can fit more than 250 states the size of Delaware within the borders of Alaska!" As if that matters?

She also cited Obama's executive experience as being one big "ZERO!", an instant hit. 'ZERO ZERO ZERO' is a heckling chant Obama will now have to endure for two long months. She went on to say that Obama has no executive experience "of anything, for that matter."

Palin's very creepy speech followed Guiliani's, in kind. Creepy because she's got the voice of a PTA mom neighbor-lady that tells you in measured sweetness, to keep your fucking dog on your own lawn.

Palin tried her hand at international savvy, pronouncing the tricky names of countries that sound to harbor terrorists. It'd have been charming if she was reading a fourth grade book report on foreign nations. Which is what it sounded like. But this woman is running for VP. And she better have more to say than dropping the names of countries she obviously just heard of for the first time, moments before accepting the nomination for vice president of the United States.

After boasting about being a regular mom and her husband's accomplishments as a champion snowmobile racer, she lauded McCain's would-be journey from a "6 foot square prison cell to the oval office" saying "that's the journey he will have made."

She seemed to skip the millionaire many times over, and lots of houses part, in between.

She ridiculed Obama's "styrofoam columns" set up on stage at his acceptance speech. The crowd pissed themselves with glee.

And finally her philosophy on the reason for governing: "To leave this nation better than we found it."

Uh. Where have you been for the last eight years, Palin? The country's in the toilet and guess which party was at the wheel?

Oh how I longed for Hillary Clinton to be back in the race. Because Yes She Could stand up to all this mom-as-political ploy crap and snap the spine of Palin -- not with the swing of the axe meant to enthuse a blood thirsty crowd -- but in a totally gracious and intelligent and deeply satisfying way.

Why do I feel a corner has turned -- and Democrats are doomed? Will we all have to move to France to repair our nervous systems, tucked into chairs overlooking the sea with plaid wool blankets tucked around our knees?

It's up to Obama and Biden to come out swinging, and hard. Forget Palin's a woman. And remember that though she's totally stolen the spotlight from McCain, she's not the point of this election, though the newly energized Republican party, and McCain himself, seem to think so.

But here's the truly scary part: emerged tonight is a newer, even tougher than George Bush breed of pit bull Republican that is cornering the market on what it means to be American. The blood that flows through their veins is thought redder. And that means anyone not a right-wing creationist, anti-abortion gun-toting mother of many, let's call it the new "Red Meat Elite," just isn't American enough. We won't feel we even belong in America any more. And that's you. And me. And everyone in between.

Comments

[trailerparktrash]

As I watched Palin cheerfully try to do to Obama what Jessie Jackson wanted to do awhile back ("cut his nuts off") I kept wondering how this woman could look so familiar, even though she's just emerged on the world stage. Then it struck me--the mocking smart-ass tone, the curling of the upper lip in a sneer, the cockiness....my God, it's the clones of Dick Cheney and George W. somehow freakishly melded into one person. It's, it's....Palinstein!

[TotallyAmazed]

I understand what you mean about ... "a corner has turned."

For me it started when I began feeling queasy when reading about Sarah Palin's inexperience last weekend. A long-held belief slithered away from me, and it seemed to glance back at me not understanding.

It was the belief that regardless of who becomes president, the winning ticket sets out to do good for ALL Americans. It's the beleif that even if things go wrong and turn out rotten for the entire term(s), they had our best interest in mind at the onset. Even George Bush didn't set out to screw us over, he just let it happen along the way.

A corner has, indeed, turned; and in viewing the distance I witness a president that decided winning an election was more important than covering his country's butt. I see a man who not getting his first choice for VP (Lieberman) stomped his foot and said, 'Ok, then - take THIS!'

A fundamental feeling of being looked out for, even if my choice doesn't win the white house, has left me. Barack Obama was so right - 'we are better than ... [this].'

[TheProverbialMan]

Oh, and Hillary is still around. I'm sure she'll take Palin to the house...of pain.

[TheProverbialMan]

The speech was a simple formula: Pander, Lie, Distort, Repeat.