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See How They Run

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I am a mouse with social anxiety disorder, for which I take Xanax. I come out from under the Nittany Turkey’s family room sofa to watch TV when he’s not looking, and the only thing that’s been on that TV of late has been the Democratic National Convention. I’ll share my opinions with you.

First of all, at the beginning of the evening there was a truly unique and moving moment in U.S. history in which the first African-American (a real one, in this case) was nominated by acclamation by his party, a party with some serious racist schisms in its past. (Well, it’s true. That’s why MLK Sr. and MLK Jr. were Republicans.) I remember a similar moment in 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman nominated for the office of Vice President. We’re making progress, albeit slowly. Unfortunately, this is the wrong guy for the job, but I digress. Back to the happenings of the evening.

There were quite a few speakers I didn’t bother watching, among them the pompous and forgettable John Kerry. ????? ??????? ?????? ????? This Mouse would rather see an alley cat with hunger pangs than that haughty schmuck. He had his moment, he failed, and now let’s be done with him, already. He should be accorded the same polite dismissal that was given to Jimmy Carter. Why do the Democrats feel compelled to feature losers like Kerry? You’d think they would have better ideas about which side their bread was buttered on.

The feature event of the evening, of course, was former president William Jefferson Clinton’s address. Now there is a guy who can speak! ????? ??? ??????? ?????? Say what you will about his character or whatever the hell you airheads always resort to when you can’t think of anything better to nail him with, he could sell ice to Eskimos. He can mock sincerity better than anyone. And lie? That guy can lie so well he can convince himself what he’s saying is true. He came out to the tune of “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow”, which was his campaign theme song in 1992 and 1996. This time, it wasn’t sung by Fleetwood Mac, the original band that recorded the song. It sounded like it was sung by those backup singers on American Idol. You know, like the Supremes without Diana. Whatever.

Moving right along, Clinton covered the usual pedestrian Democrat subjects, but covered them convincingly and moved his audience. Starting with a five minute standing ovation, he finally hushed the crowd and spoke for a full 20 minutes, double the time allotted to him.

The topic of the night was to have been national security, and Clinton was tasked with conforming to the theme. He ignored those instructions and delivered a typical Slick Willie campaign speech. It was more about his accomplishments than about Obama’s, though. Why? Obama has not accomplished anything. Furthermore, when a Clinton speaks, it is always about the Clintons. However, Clinton was effective in calling for party unity instead of PUMA (Party Unity, My Ass!), a final whine by the dissed Hillary faction. He praised Hillary and promised her 18 million votes to Obama. Whether those votes will actually be delivered is anyone’s guess.

Of course, there was a significant amount of McCain bashing, with the usual distortions and exaggerations about the dire straits the Republican administration has brought us. Interestingly, Clinton mentioned that the Republicans had the White House and the Congress in 2001, which was the start of all this badness, but he didn’t mention that the Democrat controlled Congress elected in 2006 has done next to nothing at all. ????? ????? ?????? (Still, I think the combination of a Democrat controlled congress and a Democrat in the White House can only mean that oppressive socialism is right around the corner.) He implicated McCain in all of Bush’s failures, and the failures of congress. It all went over very well with the bunch on the floor.

In all, Clinton’s speech was a rebel rouser, if you’ll excuse the expression, and it is sure to give Obama a bounce in the polls. It might even bring in some of the 18 million Hillary votes. His endorsement, however, doesn’t mean a thing. He only wants to set the stage for another Hillary run at the White House. Nevertheless, his speech will surely work to Obama’s benefit, and it will probably help the Clintons pay their campaign debts, if you know what I mean. That’s this Mouse’s opinion.

Funny thing. I watch these conventions and see the euphoria they create, which distorts people’s ideas about what’s right, what’s wrong, and who is going to win all this stuff. I saw it with the really ridiculous Kerry euphoria in 2004. How could anyone really get excited about Kerry-Edwards? Yet people were all ga-ga after the convention. Problem is, only those of the appropriate mindset who actually watch the convention proceedings feel that way. The voters, quite appropriately, tend to want to reel in many of these euphoric wacko expectations when November rolls around.

Next up on the podium was Joseph Biden, who did his duty to the ticket. Again, as anyone who has observed the senator from Delaware over the years would have expected, Biden was a blow-hard. A lot of the speech was concerned with his experience and accomplishments. Why? Because Obama has no track record and Biden likes to talk about himself. Where Biden was “useful” was in the traditional vice presidential nominee role as attack dog. Only thing is, Biden was not convincing in his excoriation of John McCain, particularly because he contradicted his own heartfelt words about McCain by suddenly questioning McCain’s character. I think the Dems are really worried and have amped up the rhetoric from merely berating the current administration’s policies and predicting more of the same with McCain. Now, they have begun to attack McCain’s judgment. I suppose it is a smokescreen when their own candidate has no track record and no qualifications. However, I am convinced that Biden was being a good attack dog and personally knows better about McCain. He certainly chose not to mention that he and Obama were both wrong, while McCain was right about the surge in Iraq. Of course not. He knows better. So, Biden did not pull off the job of explaining how an Obama-Biden ticket will enhance national security, which, after all, was the theme of the evening.

Biden’s other job was to convince the electorate that the Obama-Biden ticket will have the experience and knowledge to run foreign policy for this country. I think that Biden brought this off for those who chose to listen. However, rarely does a vice president run anything, foreign policy included. So, Biden talking about all his Senate Foreign Relations Committee experiences didn’t move me.

At the end of Biden’s speech, his wife, Jill, came up on stage and told him she had a surprise for him. Of course, the surprise was Obama walking out on stage to great adulation by the lemmings on the floor. Children and grandchildren flooded the podium, and Obama spoke.

Before I get to his well rehearsed speech, it is interesting to note that the two men who stood at center stage, the Democratic ticket for 2008, consist of two senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden, with the the #1 and #3 most liberal voting records in 2007, respectively. By contrast, Hillary Clinton ranked #16 that same year. (Teddy Kennedy, ranked #2, appeared on Monday night.)

Obama’s brief speech gave a clue that the Dems were suddenly concerned about public perception of the planned spectacle at Invesco Field, which, careful to sanitize any reference to corporate America, he referred to as Mile High Stadium, its former generic name. He sounded defensive in explaining that the reason he decide to throw the big to-do at Invesco was because he essentially wanted all the people who ever worked toward his election to be able to participate. The people. My people.

In what? In a self-directed coronation? The Greek columns, the elevated rising stage, and the general hype suggest it. Has any presidential candidate since John Kennedy felt the need for such a massive production? It seems to this Mouse like overkill, like Obama has something to prove. His defense of the venue and the grandiosity only amplifies this feeling in my furry little rodent brain. If Obama wants to be the candidate of the people, he should skip the rock star appearances. They make him look like alternatively like he’s either a megalomaniac or he’s insecure in his current position, which is way the hell over his head, and he’s trying too hard. Is that what we want from a President of the United States?

Let’s face it: if you don’t have the goods, you have to make a good show of it. An end run. Throw up a great smoke screen and the lemmings will march with you right over the damn cliff.

So, tomorrow, we have the spectacle. It won’t feature Charlton Heston, because he’s a Republican. (A little levity there.) This Mouse will be back with a recap of Thursday’s, um, festivities, if my Internet connectivity ever returns. We’ll also have something to say when John McCain announces his choice of vice president.

Love Fest: Day 2

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Another day of watching rousing speeches on big TV from under the Nittany Turkey’s sofa inspires me to share my observations about the Democratic National Convention. Who am I? Why, I’m the Mouse Who Ate Xanax and I have political opinions. (As you all know by now, opinions are like assholes. We all have them, and they all stink—even furry little rodent asses.)

First of all, I found it interesting that the keynote speech, delivered by former Virginia governor Mark Warner, was moved out of prime time, a lateral arabesque similar to to the first night’s downplaying of the Carter Family. Over the course of the evening the reason for the time shift emerged. Apparently, Warner had been told to bash McCain, which he declined to do. Accordingly, he was deemed not worthy of prime time. It is unclear whether Warner’s speech was finalized before he was booted to the inferior time slot. Well, nothing is final until it is finished, and Warner could have changed the speech, but he didn’t. Good for him for sticking to his guns; bad for the Dems for marginalizing one of the party’s rising stars, one who could help give them a foothold in the crucial state of Virginia.

This little posturing and in-fighting crapola is typical of Democrat politicos. Beneath their easily seen through altruistic populist veneer lies a cutthroat desire to grab and hold control at the cost of alienating others of their kind. All the lip service paid to unification of the party in the past has been belied by the rifts within. Will this year be any different?

It might not matter. There was no love lost between John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, yet they were able to run a successful campaign together (or separately, as it turned out).

Cherubic Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana, originally third-billed speaker, took over the prime time, pre-Hillary speaking slot, firing up the audience with the prescribed dose of anti-McCain rhetoric. Apparently, that was the view of the party the Dems want to maintain. Schweitzer did the job quite well. He is important to the Dems because Montana is a typically Republican state.

The evening’s pièce de résistance, of course, was the speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. ???????? The question on everybody’s mind, including this furry little rodent brain, was whether she could surmount the animosity and rivalry of the primary campaign and actually endorse Barack Obama for president. I think she accomplished that objective, but the speech was more about Hillary’s accomplishments than Obama’s. In fact, she never mentioned Obama’s. She gave a standard party line speech, touching on all the standard liberal hot button areas, saying how great it will be to take back America, bla bla bla, like only the Democrats can, for the sake of the workers, the minorities, the homosexuals, and, of course, the chilllllldren. She said she’ll feel the glow of the accomplishment when Obama signs a bill giving “affordable health care” to all Americans. Her thinly transparent purpose was to rally her supporters to vote for Obama—which was obviously what the party wanted. That she could attempt to accomplish her objective without lionizing Obama or playing up his qualification for the job was interesting, to say the least.

Frankly, as an honest mouse, I must say that this was the best speech I’d ever seen Hillary deliver. Will it do the job, “galvanizing” the much bandied about 18 million voters in Hillary’s camp? I don’t think so, at least not completely. A lot of Hillary supporters are pissed off that Hillary was subjected to the twin insults of being beaten by Obama and then passed over for the Vice President spot.

This speech tonight—this fine oration—might just serve to convince many Hillary supporters that the wrong candidate is representing the party. ?????? ??? She didn’t say anything new and she didn’t say anything about Obama. However, what she said, she said well. She had the audience; they were hers. Not all women are flaming, liberal, automatic Democrat voters. Some will think twice and some will cross party lines. Many Hillary supporters will harken back to her words from the primary campaign. This speech tonight didn’t capture many of those who are sitting on the fence, that’s for sure.

That brings us to tomorrow night, a night on which we’ll have the roll call vote and the potential for disruption by the Hillary supporters. That should be interesting. Even more interesting is the scheduled speech by former president Bill Clinton.

What will Clinton talk about? Whatever he wants. Originally, tomorrow night was supposed to have been national security night. The Democrats wanted Clinton to fit his speech into that subject area. He balked, saying he would speak about whatever he wanted to speak about. The convention organizers quickly caved, telling Clinton he could do it his way. Whatever that is should be interesting. We can only guess that it will be about the Clintons, because when the Clintons are involved it’s always about the Clintons!

The other featured speaker tomorrow night is Joe Biden, who will deliver his acceptance speech for the vice presidential nomination. This Mouse expects a typical, blow-hard Biden speech, with little interesting content.

On Thursday, the anointed one, Obama himself, will finally show up and deliver a speech at Invesco Field instead of from the podium at the convention. casino arab That way, the self-appointed savior can preach to more people—his people—than he could otherwise. It should be like one of those Billy Graham revivals in Yankee Stadium, albeit with appropriate shills in highly visible audience locations and on the central stage. I can hear it now: “Today… I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth…” Apologies to the late Lou Gehrig. Sorry. Anyhow, there will be a stage replete with ionic columns to make it look like the White House, and there will be fireworks. Oh, boy! Mouse joy! What an overblown spectacle it will be! Would Jimmy Carter approve? No one cares. This Mouse doesn’t, that’s for sure, being very happy to watch Democrats self-destruct, time after time.

I’m having great fun watching this thing while I drop little mouse turds under the sofa. Well, tomorrow night it will be diarrhea night in honor of Joe Biden’s verbal variety. Or maybe I should just smoke a cigar in symbolic appreciation of some of Slick Willie’s best Oval Office accomplishments. See you later!

Anybody Want Some Change?

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I’ll give you my two cents.

The voters of Florida are clueless, as usual.

A lot of Kool Aid must have gone down the pipes to inspire Demoquat voters to give the evil Hillary such a resounding margin in a toothless election that will result in no committed delegates to the Democratic National Convention. (The Dems, ever willing to cut off their own nuts, decided to punish Florida for moving up its primary election to a week in advance of Super Tuesday, the punishment being that Florida would send no delegates to the convention.) Still, the result says a lot about the people of Florida—the Democrats, anyhow.

“Change.” They want “change.” When was the last time you heard that? I harken back to sounds of 1992, when the master himself and potential First Hubby, Slick Willy, successfully employed that notion as a primary plank in his campaign platform. Change from what to what? No one knows, but change for the sake of change must be good, right?

The “change” mantra sounded so good to Barack Obama that he has adopted it as the premise for his entire campaign. We can do better than business as usual. We need change. Bill Clinton is a political genius, so why not use one of his masterpieces? It worked for Bill, so it can work for Barack. And he’s right on the verge of adopting “It’s the economy, Stupid” as a campaign slogan. How very 1992!

I heard one exit-interviewed voter, a woman, of course, state that we needed change. She probably could use some of that change to buy groceries for her kids. Anyhow, she said she wanted to return to the good times of the Clinton Administration when everything was peachy, the economy was strong, and everybody was happy. Change.

Well, unfortunately, a Clinton II Administration will bring about change of the most disastrous kind: confiscatory taxes, socialized medicine, weakened national security, and sweetheart deals with special interests. (Not that the current administration or Congress have clean hands in that last area, but I included it for completeness.) Alas, Obama is spouting the same diatribe, only he’s generally clueless. Just wait, lady, and you’ll see the strong economy you’re hoping for crumble before your very eyes. You see, this time, there will be no checks and balances. Democrat Houses of Congress, with that geeky, nigglingly irascible Harry Reid and the dangerously left-wing Nancy Pelosi leading the way, will rubber-stamp all the socialist crap the White House (or should I say the Pink House) proffers, and then some. That’ll be some change.

Alas, people have gotten into the mindset of “whatever it takes to make me feel good.” They don’t feel good at the moment, so they want change. I’ve got news for them. They’ll never feel good. Why do we allow these short sighted chronic malcontents the right to vote? Do you really want them ruining your country?

Oh, I expect to get some comments about how crappily the current administration has done its job and how anything at all would be better. Isn’t that my premise for this article? Go ahead and affirm that you want change for change’s sake

As for the current administration, I’m particularly annoyed by the so-called fiscal stimulus package Bush and Pelosi have agreed upon. Let’s just go ahead and rob tomorrow to feel good today—right in time to get everybody elected. Washington is self-interested to a fault, and neither side of the aisle is exempt. Do you think that the kind of “change” you’re seeking is going to change that behavior? Hell, no! If you think so, please feel free to don your tinfoil hats and drink some more Kool Aid. It’s ingrained, my leetle friends, and the conundrum is that it will become even more so as voters continue to vote for “change” instead of closely examining qualifications and track records. The more things change, the more they stay the same. But I digress.

Obama is campaigning on the premise of change—change alone, for changes sake. Yes we can? We can what? I don’t think the senator knows what of he speaks. In fact he knows nothing, as becomes clear when issues of substance arise in debates with Mrs. Clinton, so all he has to offer is a promise of change from business as usual in Washington. Based on what? He’s a relative newcomer to Washington, so perhaps he can claim that he hasn’t adopted the Washington mindset yet. Oh, but he would have needed to play ball with the Beltway Boys to survive in Washington, so I’m not buying the mantra for a split-second. Even if he weren’t lying about not doing business as usual, he’s being awfully naive. Last time we had similar naivete in the White House, Jimmy Carter damn near gave away the country (he literally did give away the single most strategic resource in this hemisphere, the Panama Canal) and allowed the USA to become a doormat overseas. God help us if we return to that simple-minded executive so-called leadership with a real war, rather than a cold one, being waged on foreign soil.

Our voters are idiots. They buy this “change” crap and they don’t take the time to find out what we’re changing to. Idiots don’t do research. Idiots like the change thing. Hell, anything has got to be better than what we have now, right? Fucking chronic malcontents. Idiots like to be led by the nose, because they think government should do everything for them, and these candidates sure as hell know how to appeal to idiots by promising that the government will take care of all their needs. Sheesh! Idiots are too stupid to understand that their votes are being bought by promises of cradle-to-grave loving care by a band of self-interested thieves whose primary objective is to feather their own nests with the trappings of power.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Democrats are preparing to ignore the people’s vote by empowering so-called super delegates to vacate primary election results and chose the candidate who best represents their interests. Is this government of the people, by the people, and for the people? The Democrats are preparing their usual foot shot, and judging by past results, their aim is uncannily true. Unless Barack and Hillary can kiss and make up by August, the Dems can kiss their November chances goodbye.

The Republican primaries are not tainted by the prospect of so-called super delegates, but there’s an undercurrent brewing in GOP ranks about who’s more conservative than who, and who would be most like Ronald Reagan. Here again, the party seems to be ignoring the voice of the people. If people wanted an ultra-conservative candidate, they’d damn well vote for one. If the people are shifting toward the center, then listen to them. Jesus freaks, abortion wankers, stem cell zealots—shut the hell up, already! We’re running a country here, and there are two real issues: the war on terrorism and the economy. Diverting presidential attention to barroom bullshit issues like religion, abortion, and fucking similar time-wasting distractions gets in the way of doing the job. Maybe someday we’ll see a candidate with brass balls stand up and say that. And maybe someday, the idiot voters will see the light. So, McCain leans a little left to suit your conservative asses. Shut the hell up and let the people decide!

There is no panacea, and if there were, it sure as hell wouldn’t be Hillary. Eight years of a HillyBilly Administration and I guarantee you that you’ll be seeking change once again—but by then it will be too damn late!

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“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” —H.L. Mencken