Belated Thoughts on RNC Night 3

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that night three of the convention was the most disgusting, revolting, sickening, etc... Let me be clear, I have no problem with attacks on the opposition at political conventions. In fact, I expect them. At times, I even find myself yearning for more of them. CoughDemocratsCough. However, and this is a big however, I don't expect, nor do I want, nor should anyone else want to see a convention or any portion of a convention devoted soley to attacking the opposition. That is quite simply not what the conventions are about. To be honest in this age of scripting, they don't seem to be about much of anything anymore except preaching to already committed voters while the networks give you a semi-cold shoulder, but they are definitely about attacking. They are supposed to be about supporting. Sen. Zell Miller's speech was outrageous, plain and simple. It was not about supporting George W., it was about tearing John Kerry, and to a lesser extent John Edwards and the entire Democratic Party -- the party he insists on remaining part of despite the fact that it stands for little of what he believes in anymore -- limb from limb. While the message was certainly outrageous, the way in which it was delivered was, in a word, sickening. I really thought Mr. Miller was going to self destruct when he implied that John Kerry would arm the military with spit balls. On top of this, Mr. Miller managed to make his speech rather blatantly hypocritical. Immediately after his call for bipartisanship, he placed the blame for more or less all the countries failures and the direction in which the country has turned and is headed, squarely on the shoulders of democrats who are in Miller's blatantly "black and white" mind, consistently wrong, and whose "manic obsession with bringing down our commander in chief" is bad for America -- because to dissent is of course to be unpatriotic. I could go on, but I will be writing all night and I want to say a couple things about Dick Cheney's speech before I forget everything he said.

I will admit that Dick Cheney's speech was slightly more respectable, but not that much more respectable. I found it interesting that while 9/11 was such an enormous, pounding theme of the Republican Convention, Cheney couldn't seem to find the time to even say the name of the man responsible for the events of that dreadful day. Come to think of it, nor could his buddy George, but I'll devote an entire other post to discussing his little ditty. To be honest, I at first thought Cheney might actually deliver a decent, convention worthy speech. But then came what I now realize were the inevitable Kerry attacks. I found myself laughing a bit when Cheney rolled off the exact same attacks on Kerry's senate voting record that Mr. Miller did. I also found it a little confusing when Cheney brought back his attack on his favorite Kerry quote to take out of context: a more sensitive war on terror. I found this odd since after he did it the first time, everyone and their mothers' seemed to point out that W. made a strikingly similar statement, and last I checked, Cheney wanted W. to win this one. So Dick, choose your attacks more carefully in the future, k? Oh, and while your at it, maybe try breaking free of those monotone chains that seem to be holding you captive. I know, I know, cheap attacks, but I couldn't help myself. Anyway, in my mind, night 3 of the 2004 RNC is perfect evidence of why not to put Bush/Cheney back in office for four more years.