Idiocy on Parade
I grew up in the age of the party convention as “everything’s already been decided” made-for-TV special, and thus I have a certain vicarious nostalgia for the days when these get-togethers were rowdy, contested, dramatic affairs—when, say, Bill Rusher was calling out orders to delegates on the floor via walky-talky while organizing the unlikely nomination of Barry Goldwater in ’64. Something like that will probably never take place again. The Democrats now have instant messaging and Twitter, and yet they use it to send out mushy texts and tweets about how much they looove Michelle. The rumblings of a pro-Hillary rebellion will be easily quelled with a symbolic reading of the senator’s name during the nomination process.
This being said, while watching the first night of the convention, my sense was that the whole thing wasn’t choreographed enough. I mean, if it’s going to be a charade anyway, the least the Democrats could do is put on a show. Maybe Bill’s latest menagerie of bimbos could come out and perform with hula-hoops--something. The DNC needs to take a lesson from the Chinese, who know a thing or two about Nationalist Spectacle, and Vegas kitsch. The funds don’t seem to be lacking. Their gigantic blue jumbotron backdrop must have cost a fortune, and yet it doesn’t actually seem to do anything.
Worse, the party paraded out the most soporific speakers imaginable. First their was bug-eyed, facelifted Pelosi, who made me turn off the TV for an hour. When I flipped it back on, some smiling blonde senator I’ve never heard of was on stage, chirping “with liberty and justice for all” and then “yes, we can!” to close out her intolerably stupid presentation. Then there was Michele Obama’s brother, who’s apparently a basketball coach, but who was so stiff and monotone while giving his pep talk that I imagined that if he’d been in charge of coaching the ’92 Duke squad in its big game against Kentucky, Christian Laettner and Grant Hill might have decided it just wasn’t worth it and walked off the floor (instead of doing this.)
Then Michelle gave her speech, which has got to be one of the most diffuse and dumbed-down pieces of rhetoric I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know the Democrats thought their voters where this brain-dead. At one point, FOX put up a News Alter at the bottom of the screen—“Mrs. Obama: ‘I love this country.’” This just about sums up the intellectual content of the speech. Apparently some were crying, but then these are the same people who got inspired by John Kerry.
Even if the writing style in Michele’s speech never got much above a 7th-grade term-paper level, it’s clear that she had a party hack compose it for her. I, and certainly many others, had hoped that Mrs. Obama might insist that she write the thing herself and thus treat us to some really crazy shiznit—you know, something that resembled her Princeton senior thesis:
These experiences have made it apparent to me that the path I have chosen to follow by attending Princeton will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant. This realization has presently, made my goals to actively utilize my resources to benefit the Black community more desirable.
This was too much to be desired. Instead we got stuff that was crazy in a wonkish, boring liberal way: Michelle thinks that every child should have a “world-class” college education and talked about how Barack didn’t want her and her “community” to “settle for the world as it is — even when it doesn’t reflect our values and aspirations.” This stuff is so vapid, it doesn’t really deserve comment.
One would expect the Dems to be better showmen than the Republicans, and yet traditionally the GOP has always put on more effective conventions. The Republicans can always rely on their Democratic foil to make them seem sensible, tasteful, and aesthetically gifted.
Comments
Lew Rockwell had the best quote about the Democrats today: “As usual, the Republicans don’t deserve to win, but the Democrats do deserve to lose.”
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Ha. Excellent commentary. Thank you for having the courage to watch this for the rest of us. I am content to read the accounts that were provided by you and Justin. I also find Nasty Pelousy intolerable to watch or listen to. You are also dead on that the Chinese should have been employed to bring this off.
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Nasty makes my stomach churn. I am pondering a donation to Cindy Sheehan to see if the liberals in her district really have any principles or if they are as morally corrupt as the Republicans.
It’s always amusing to see the negro minstrel show trotted out to entertain the lily-white Republican convention.
Hill’s supporters are willing to sell their souls to Satan just to make sure Hillary remains the standard bearer.
I was amused to see Glen Greenwald being harassed by cops as he and reporters tried to see who was going to the ATT thank you party for Nasty and the Blue Dogs for selling the Constitution down the toilet with their FISA bill.
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ROTFL
You nailed it Richard!
According to “Faux News” channel; Hillary is going to have a “whip squad” (to maintain order ???) this evening…
Chelsea, Hillary, Gore, “Bubba,” all on a time delay...Three more days....Then a week of the Republicans!
*sighs*
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Quick! Name a standout moment from a recent Republican Convention or quote a line
from a speech from such a convention…
Why is it I can only remember such moments from Democratic Conventions? Al Gore’s kiss,
Dick Morris’ humiliation, John Kerry’s salute and now the Obama family hello. That’s
all people will rememeber, not whether Nancy Pelosi is a good speaker. Who’s going to
remember that?
If GOP puts on effective conventions maybe it’s because they put the minimal amount of
shownmanship into it? They get their business done, say a few simplistic words and its
away we go.
The last significant moment I remember from a GOP Convention was Pat Buchanan’s speech
in 1992 in which he said that after 12 years of Republican rule, the country was
basically going to hell. Now that’s straying from the script.
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I too am forcing myself to watch the convention. A few observations.
Hillary’s broad and plump derriere would have been better served in a colour other than pumpkin.
In the same vein, it was a little tasteless of Ken Burns, that tiny elfin pinko, to choose an ocean motif for his tribute to Ted Kennedy. The man is after all, noted for having drowned a woman.
Last night’s coverage did have its comedic moments, as when a Hawaiian delegate reminisced about knowing Barrak Obama back when he called himself Barry.
Finally, I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but the feeling that something was missing throughout the convention just wouldn’t go away. And then Hillary claimed that John McCain planned to privatize Social Security, and all was well. It just wouldn’t be a Democratic Convention without that wonderful old saw of theirs.
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Indeed, the Dems show was rather poor. I was working behind Iron Curtain in the Film News Agency at the turn of 70’s and 80’s Our short documentaries were shown before the feature films in the movie theaters. You can’t imagine how much preparation “behind the scene” I had to go through. The funniest think, I remember, were the hired “group of apparatchiks-shouters.” It was group of employed by Party people who were initiating in appropriate moment the hand clapping for all audience and shouting endless arrays of short sentenced manifestos like “out friendship with Soviet Union will stay forever,” which usually had to coincide with the currently running speech of some Party bigwig. So it was not that easy as it seemed because it had to look spontaneous. I ridicule this choreographed Party events, now but actually it “looked more energetic and involving” vs little bit too “sclerotic” on DNV. Since the downfall of communist block many guys becomes unemployed there my suggestion to DNC is to hire some ex-pros from ex Iron Curtain. The show may become more palatable…
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Indeed, the Dems show was rather poor. I was working behind Iron Curtain in the Film News Agency at the turn of 70’s and 80’s Our short documentaries were shown before the feature films in the movie theaters. You can’t imagine how much preparation “behind the scene” I had to go through. The funniest think, I remember, were the hired “group of apparatchiks-shouters.” It was group of employed by Party people who were initiating in appropriate moment the hand clapping for all audience and shouting endless arrays of short sentenced manifestos like “out friendship with Soviet Union will stay forever,” which usually had to coincide with the currently running speech of some Party bigwig. So it was not that easy as it seemed because it had to look spontaneous. I ridicule this choreographed Party events, now but actually it “looked more energetic and involving” vs little bit too “sclerotic” on DNC. Since the downfall of communist block many guys becomes unemployed there my suggestion to DNC is to hire some ex-pros from ex Iron Curtain. The show may become more palatable…
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Richard’s revelations of the dumb-downed, cliche-perpetuating speeches at
the Democratic convention is the reason I didn’t watch it. How many years
will it take Americans to wake up and reject the Liberal circus? How long will it
take American voters to see what the Liberal ideology is all about: pure fantasy, and
strict intolerance of those who have a different world view, which, by the way,
may conform to reality? For those who have not read it, yet, I highly recommend
James Burnham’s SUICIDE OF THE WEST. It is a neat dissection and analysis of what
Liberalism really is.
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