Recall who made this mess we're in
Well, the conventions are over and of course what would a grand old Republican party be without a room full of elephants? In case you missed it, I'll summarize the speeches for you; honor and support the troops, the surge, change, broken, maverick, hero, executive experience, hockey mom, community organizer (ha ha), and God bless America. Now that you're caught up, what about those elephants?
Perhaps the biggest elephant in the room was the absence of the president and vice president. There was no bragging - none, zero, nada, (Giuliani speak) about all the accomplishments of the past eight years. Instead, we consistently heard how Washington was broken. Who broke it? For six of the eight years, Republicans also controlled both houses of Congress. We've not heard so many calls for change since the year 2000 when George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. Can we have just one more chance Dean Wormer?
What ever happened to immigration? I don't recall even hearing the word spoken. Just two years ago the Republican National Committee sent postcard after postcard depicting not-too-small-town-looking thugs scaling a fence and threatening our national security. Apparently the problem has been solved. Of course not, and that leads to another elephant in the room, the right wing conservative base. McCain the maverick championed a comprehensive and bipartisan effort to deal with immigration. He and others got hammered. As a result, we really witnessed more of a maverick-lite McCain, who in an apparent act of appeasement, (a favorite right wing word), chose Gov. Palin to be his running mate. Nothing in John McCain's heroic history would have prepared him for the daily beating he'd have gotten from the "agents of intolerance" had he gone with his choice of running mate, either Sen. Lieberman or Tom Ridge. Knowing they'd have to defend Gov. Palin's inexperience, it was decided to hammer home her executive experience as mayor and governor. We were led to believe she was more experienced than both Obama and Biden combined. You know the elephant in the room. Under that line of reasoning, she's more experienced than McCain! Is it too late to switch to a Palin-McCain ticket?
Our final elephant, Dumbo, represents the expectation that enough voters will swallow some frankly stupid arguments in addition to voting against their own economic self-interest. For example, Gov. Palin lives in Alaska, Alaska is close to Russia, therefore Gov. Palin has qualifying foreign relations experience. I believe that one actually came out of Mr. McCain's own mouth!
Please. Enough is enough.
Robert Mount
Grayslake