It's a little after midnight where I live, September 3rd, must be more than an hour since Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wrapped up her dramatic debut in St. Paul. Somewhere in that city, Palin is basking in the adoration of a group of top-tier Republican contributors. Conventioneers, the younger ones, are stuffed into crowded bars and late-night restaurants, high-five-ing themselves silly and trying not to hyperventilate at the idea that FOUR MORE YEARS might, somehow, not be so far out of reach after all (memo to them: it is). Talking heads from the cable outfits and networks are, hopefully, shuffling zombie-like to their hotel rooms, while former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has lost most of the skin on his shoulders from the nonstop back-slapping. And as their laptops whir to life, professional fact-checkers are dreaming of the things they'll be able to do with all that overtime pay.
Tonight was supposed to be the night that America learned about Sarah Palin, and learn we did. For one thing, she's very, very good at delivering a speechwriter's words from a teleprompter. As she slid into her carefully tailored biography, she was confident and collected, poised; she even showed flashes of humor. When she transitioned to John McCain, she was forceful and dramatic, bordering on maudlin. (Will somebody on McCain's team PLEASE tell the speechwriters that we've all been over the Hanoi Hilton stuff enough times to draw them a picture of the place? Please?)
And then Palin turned her attention to Barack Obama. Last week, Obama began his tough but civil attacks on McCain by honoring his service and saying that he was a good man, but he was wrong on too many important issues. Obama said that McCain wanted to do the best for the country, but he just didn't "get it," and we were reminded that we could disagree without being disagreeable. Tonight we learned that Sarah Palin doesn't have time for that kind of pantywaist liberal chit chat. That stuff just won't bag the moose, so to speak. Basically, Sarah wanted us to know from the get-go that Obama intends to tax us into a naked, sniveling mass of goo, sell our homes & spend the money buying copies of the Koran for illegal-alien Islamic extremist porn-producing gang members, give all the oil in Alaska to, I don't know, France, maybe, kill all the babies, burn all the small businesses to the ground and level most of small-town America to make room for resorts for lobbyists. Yup, that's pretty much his program. And Barack won't do all that to us because he doesn't get it. He'll do it because he WANTS to! Mwuuuuuaaaahhhhh! Oh, and she thinks he's a gifted speaker.
Okay, I made the baby thing up.
But Palin stood up to the joke she made earlier in her speech: What's the difference between a pit bull and a soccer mom? Lipstick! That one went over real big. Sick 'em Sarah! (Wanna bet that, backstage, McCain was whispering, "tonight, we're all hockey moms... we're all pit bulls!")?
While much of Palin's diatribe on Obama was, shall we say, "stretched" (read: laughably fictional), her real impact came from style. Remembering that this is a party twice wooed by a message hate and fear delivered with a condescending and self-righteous tone, she added liberal doses (Yikes! There's that word!) of hatefulness dripping with sarcasm. Nice touch. Definitely a leader, that one.
Sarah's warm-up act, Rudy Giuliani, hit an even greater level of snark, but he stuck more tightly to a single theme: Barack Obama, aside from sitting around thinking up ways to make Americans poorer and less safe, has done nothing. Not one single thing. Never. Not ever. "Zero! Zip! Nada!" (actual quote). Rudy had enormous fun with the term "community organizer." Just what the hell IS a community organizer, Rudy wondered. (Palin would later answer the question: it was a lot like a small-town mayor, only the mayor has actual responsibilities). Giuliani? He just let it linger the, unanswerable. And the crowd lapped it up. Rudy -- dude -- look at me: We're tired of leaders who act like complete assholes. We've been sneered at and belittled and lied to and ignored and purposely frightened for almost eight years. You can fire up the base with that stuff, but the rest of us (around 38,000 Wasillas) are over it. We expected what right-wing nutjob commentator Pat Buchanan loves to call "red meat." That's part of the process. But we wouldn't have guessed that you would try to re-define "jerk."
One pillar of the evening's message was a prerequisite. Republicans taught their voters decades ago that Democrats want to take all their money and make the country less safe. It isn't true, of course, but if you say it often enough, it becomes "truth." The little trick that made the evening's sneerfest possible, though, was first mastered by the Neocons. Their tactic is to choose a term with positive connotations, copyright it, define yourself in relation to it, then beat the opposition bloody with it. Bound to get you some good leadership every time. The classic example is "family values." Republicans have owned that term outright. This time around, it's "executive experience." And once again, the Democrats have been just slow enough on the uptake to allow it a place as the BIG ISSUE. While Palin's time as Mayor of Mooseville might have largely involved tough decisions on pothole repair, we're told that she was an executive. Right up there with Bill Gates, for sure. And as governor of a state with 1.2 people per square mile, her twenty months as, technically, an executive has somehow taught her all about America's economy, everything there is to know about energy (not just oil), the workings of our Justice Department, Law Enforcement and Spy agencies, and all the geopolitical intricacies of, well, the entire world. Oh -- and she's an executive mom, to boot. Which will be just what we need when those pesky Russians stir it up again.
Executive experience my eye. In just over four months, when George W. Bush completes his second term as president, only one person, Franklin D. Roosevelt, will have had more experience in the world's most important executive position. Based on experience, would we hand Bush the keys to the White House again? Even his own party doesn't want that. Heck, they're running from him full speed at the convention.
Now go back and read that last paragraph again. We'll wait...
Ready? Good.
What would happen if, instead of endlessly playing "did so, did not" with the McCain camp over executive experience, Democrats focused the debate on what's implied by the the term: who's PREPARED, who has the KNOWLEDGE to lead? Could even the reality-twisting Giuliani convince America that selling a plane on E-Bay or signing off on paving the two-lane compares to 25 years as an expert in foreign relations, the Constitution and the American legal system (as certified by Columbia and Harvard Universities (five Wassilas, between them). Rudy would still be just as condescending, I'm sure. But at least we'd be talking about something that actually matters.
Oh, and note to Rudy: If you really want to know what a "community organizer" is, you could check with a few thousand people in south Chicago. They could give you some synonyms, like "food and clothing procurement officer," "tutor," "elderly care arranger," "housing finder," "family saver," "world changer," "career re-starter." You know, little "Zero, Zip, Nada" stuff like that.
What is Rudy911's point I wondered. I did tune in for parts of the Democratic National Convention and hear all sorts of references to Al Qaeda and to fighting terrorism -- on its primary front in Afghanistan.
Then Rudy911 clarified his point. Democrats won't say the magic words "Islamic terrorism" because it might offend the terrorists. I guess Republicans believe that even terrorists would be insulted to be called a Muslim. They are intent on defining the conflict as a battle of religions in any event.
There's another term that Democrats don't use, but certainly is appropriate for Rudy911s audience: "Christo-fascist."
Democrats need to come harder ..come stronger. Enough of this wishy washy ness...but say whats on peoples minds.. and hit it hard.
Ive never seen a pitbull wearing lipstick in my life but I suggest before the Dems are accused of sexism and treating Palin in a sexist manner...they hand her some tissue to wipe that lipstick off her lips first!
Pitbulls dont need to be handled with care!