On Monday night, the Dems seemed to be having quite a nice party. Who could fault them? I’ll tell you two whos. The media and the Republicans. And with what were they finding fault? The nice, relaxed tenor of the show. They don’t like the party. It’s too restrained. Too childish. Too ice cream and cake. Uncle Teddy and his seventeen godchildren, the progeny of two or three dead brothers. Had to be a Daddy to them all. And still is. Beeootiful Michelle Obama, newly minted, pulling down those basketball shoulders that like to hike up getting ready for the throw. Coiffed and eyebrowed to a tee. And with a smile. A smile, ladies and gentlemen. The camera kept flashing to a lady who must have been her mama, because this lady couldn’t smile at all, even though her daughter is about to become First Lady. No, Sir, this woman can’t let up. The frown is frozen. I thought Michelle’s was too, but I was wrong, and happily so. When Michelle stood up there in front of the huge audience, waiting for her word, the word that can make or break the campaign, what did she do? The girl giggled. Could there be anything more endearing than that? My heart melted. If there’s anything I know, it’s girls, and this was a genuine moment. Quite the opposite of Hill’s false tears.
Between her last furrowed faux pas and now, the lady has learned to act, and we are so, so grateful. Give us more of this kind of dedication. She did it for us. She read some parts of that speech fifty times, and still (except for the “you sees” that should have been deleted before the draft got out) she sounded like this was the first time all this had occurred to her, in exactly this way. She grew excited, emotional, cajoling, confessional, grand, and confiding. It was a fine trip. And she said, “…This is why I love America.” The woman who said she had never been proud of her country until it got smart enough to tap her husband for president. We all heard her say it. It was in all our minds when she flip-flopped. But do we care? Not a whit, because her face was so sweet all through her speech. Perhaps she has responded to our love. Perhaps it’s pure politics. Either way, it’s a bridge Michelle has crossed. You can not stand before America, in a sheath the color of the Caribbean sea, that follows respectfully every curve of your athlete’s body, your stylish hair framing your piquant yet strong face, and hate the country groveling at your feet. You love yourself and you love America for creating you. Not unless America treats her husband the way she treated George Walker Bush, will Michelle ever hate her again. Then she’ll have a reason to develop the same sarcastic, one-sided smile Laura Bush, a woman she very much likes, has perfected – from the inside out. I doubt that she knows she’s done it.
I think that Michelle has been thinking, until now, that she would wake up. That the puppy in the dream was not nestled beside her in bed, that the monkey she bought in the vending machine would turn out to be a figment of her imagination. When she found herself in front of that audience in that gorgeous dress, having been worked on and worked over until she was a piece of art, she knew for the first time, this was reality.
And that should be the end of this post, because that was it for the first three days of the convention. The rest was so old hat it was impossible to stay awake and listen to the playback of tired old stump speeches. McCain was the only person in the country able to keep his eyes open – he was so exhilarated by the boredom his adversaries were propagating. The Dems are winding down. There wasn’t enough money for Hillary’s Botox. Once again, she looked her age – her neck a wreck, eyes bulging – and Shrillery was back! It hurt to hear her straining voice. What happened to the soft-spoken babe who’s been going around campaigning for her competitor these last few weeks?
Bill, as usual, said nothing, but I did notice, when he said it was hard to follow Hill’s wonderful speech, that he actually (literally, as Biden, Beau Biden, and Michelle say, too often and incorrectly) put his tongue in his cheek. Put it right in, and the cameras followed. You could see, in his open mouth, the slimy little devil slide right into his left cheek, and back past you to the right side. Tongue in cheek is obviously a basic biological tick called up when one tells a harmless little lie that everyone knows is a lie.
And he was no better. Neither was Biden. One long speech was written for all of them, then chopped into little pieces and put on the teleprompters for each of the major speakers. The best sight of the second night was when they flashed on Michelle, hair pulled demurely back, in a dress best described as “milkmaid” modern. Tonight, the bridesmaid, not the bride.
After Biden had us down and slumping in our seats, out came Barack. Second best shot of the night, their two backs, with their arms around each other. They looked like twins. But when they turned around, there it was. Chocolate and Vanilla, side by side, just like in an old-fashioned Dixie cup. Remember those, guys? Gotta be pretty damn old. Movie stars inside the big, round cover, under a transparent protective pre-plastic, paperoid protector. Collectibles.
No content in this post, right? That’s because the convention was conventional. There was no content. That was the purpose. Don’t stir up any dust. Just have a vast hall filled with people who boo and applaud out of synch because it takes a while for them to read the signs that tell them what to do, and they can’t tell from what they’re seeing and hearing. They made mistakes.
Mr. McCain I believe is holding his convention in a local McDonalds. So the place to be in the Twin Cities is Ron Paul’s Rally for the Republic. That’s Republic, not Republicans. This is the kickoff for the Campaign for Liberty. An independent endeavor for all you people who liked what Ron was saying before they dismissed him. This, by the way, is a movement that promises change unrelated to our red and blue divide. It’s just down the block from the McDonald’s. See you there! And maybe a lot of the media, too. What better way, as our president might say, to irreleventize McCain, than to go to somebody else’s party, when he’s holding his big bash.
