REPUBLICANS GONE WILD: RNC ROUNDUP

As you know, the Republicans met earlier this week to formally select Senator John S. McCain as their presidential candidate. However, before that could happen on the final night, many Republicans gave speeches that attempted to villify McCain’s opponents, the Obama-Biden ticket. This strategy is no different from the one used by Democrats the previous week. Except for the fact that Democrats’ arguments are usually based on reason and not extremely hypocritical. Some thoughts and opinions on the various speakers and the speeches they delivered this past week:

• On day one of the RNC, George W. Bush endorsed John McCain. I would endorse a guy too if he agreed with me 95% of the time and voted with my party 90% of the time in 2007. But what about Barack Obama, you ask? As this factcheck.org article points out, Obama has voted with President Bush only 40% of the time.

• Republican Independent Benedict Arnold Joe Lieberman spoke on the second day and reminded all Democrats why he is such a piece of mularkey. And by mularkey I mean… well, you figure it out. As CNN reports, “Lieberman urged Democratic and independent voters to make a change and vote for a McCain because, he said, he would do whatever it took to help the American public.” Because Obama would do whatever it takes to destroy the morale of Americans while laughing hysterically from the Oval Office as he slowly strokes the cat sitting in his lap. Right. Seems to me like that’s another underlying shot at Obama’s patriotism. It’s really getting old. What makes this situation even more disgusting is that Lieberman begged Obama to campaign for him in 2006 and Obama obliged. Mr. Lieberman, don’t try to subtly undermine Obama’s loyalty to his country when you can’t even stay loyal to your supposed friends.

• Former Arkansas governor and supposed “aw, shucks” guy Mike Huckabee spoke too and revealed his failure to pass third grade math. Huckabee claimed that Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin got more votes for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got for president. But, as PolitiFact notes, Biden got 79,754 votes for President while Palin garnered only 1,560 votes TOTAL during two elections as Wasilla’s mayor. So, according to my Hanover math, Biden received over 51 times more votes for President than Palin did as mayor of Wasilla. But what the heck do I know? I only made it past elementary school. More proof that Republicans don’t care about facts as much as they do soundbites.

• Rudy Giuliani spoke at the RNC too. Which really isn’t significant other than the fact that he is a complete hypocrite and really has no reason to comment on morals. But, anyway, he fed the delegates the same Republican propoganda material that Fred Thompson used earlier. I only write about this because chants of “Zero! Zero! Zero!”, a response to how much executive experience Obama has, continued after it began during Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle’s speech. Now, I know this may shock people who are not fans of logic and love being hypocritical, but guess how much executive experience John McCain has? You guessed it! Zero! So, The Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin tickets have a combined two and a half years of executive experience. Whoop-dee-freaking-do. I have no idea why the Obama campaign hasn’t jumped on this yet.

• Which brings me to Gov. Palin and her speech, who dropped some poorly thought-out zingers on her opponents, much to the delight of the partisan crowd. You can find the complete text here. Among many various personal shots that showed a profound sense of classlessness and a lack of respect for her opponents, Palin dropped this line: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.” Ohhhhh, burned! She got you, Senator Obama! Oh wait, you mean she ran a town of only 9,000 people?  And Barack Obama was a community organizer in Chicago, a city with almost three million people? You mean… there’s a chance that Barack Obama’s actions as a community organizer may have affected more people than Sarah Palin’s efforts as a mayor did? No way! Oh, well that’s no fun is it? Don’t try and trick me into believing that being mayor of a town with only 9,000 people and running a state with a very low population for only two years makes you more qualified to be president than Senator Obama. It’s a joke, except only half of Americans are getting the punchline. P.S.- I’m pretty sure Jesus Christ himself was a community organizer. But I guess he never really had any responsibilities, did he?

• Ah, on to Senator McCain. He spoke about a desire to be bipartisan, expressing a desire to share credit for legislation while creating a “new standard for transparency.” He says this and still produces negative ads against Obama while his cronies deliver divisive speeches in the days preceding his speech. That doesn’t contrast at all, does it? Perhaps more jaw-dropping is how he has tried to steal Obama’s theme of change and adopt it to his own campaign. He mentioned change ten times, but only mentioned experience three times. So, tell me Senator McCain, you say you’re going to change Washington even though you’ve been a member of the party responsible for the dismal past eight years? When every year you have supported at least 71% of President Bush’s legislation? What exactly are you going to change? We all know you’re going to support and maintain key Bush economic and foreign affairs policies, and those issues are arguably the two most important issues in this entire election. I don’t really know what you’re going to change since you didn’t get into the specifics in your speech.  And apparently I’m not the only one who noticed a lack of substance and details. For reaction from the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, and USA Today, click here. NBC’s Mark Murray offers excellent analysis too.

• Other sights and sounds from RNC week: former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich gets his history wrong by saying that Palin is the first former journalist to appear on a national ticket. Even though Al Gore had worked for the Nashville Tenessean before serving as President Clinton’s VP. But like I said, Republicans aren’t too concerned with facts these days. As NewsHounds notes, current FOX News analyst Karl Rove continues to show how much of a dimwit he is by assserting that we’re winning the Iraq War and that Bush had foreign policy experience in 2000 because Texas is near Mexico. I can’t make this stuff up. Conservatives Sean Hannity and Dick Morris continued to whine about Democrats while failing to analyze real issues within their own party. The O’Reilly Factor’s Bill O’Reilly reveals his double-standard on teenage pregnancies.

Now that this Republican love-fest is over, we can look forward to… more campaigning! To cheer you up, I leave you with this cartoon, a reminder of why we must endure the next two months and vote the Republican Party out of power: