Despertar

yipes

The Republican National Convention makes my teeth grind. Every sentence in Huckabee's speech, which I'm abiding only because I am desperately curious to hear Sarah Palin, is yet another justification for not showing more sensitivity toward the working man. A representative line: "I'm not a Republican because I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I'm a Republican because I didn't want to spend my whole life waiting on the government to give me things."

ARKANSAS. And, again, I'm only watching this because I'm anxious to see the star of the show, for whom I have no more respect than I do Huckabee, but that, at least, will be a new and interesting twist on the same crazy themes. How does this crowd, the majority of whom are in military regalia and/or cowboy boots, pretend to accept such a nontraditional ticket? A blatantly defective family woman who as likely as not will have to take the office if McCain croaks?

And how do people hear lines like this one--"Unlike the other electoral ticket, John McCain and Sarah Palin believe in the intrinsic value of every human life, starting from the moment of conception"--and CHEER instead of pulling their hair out? How do they somehow manage to keep from cringing when Huckabee casually drops the word Negro in the middle of the most pathetic anecdote ever? How do Catholic Nicaraguans show their faces at such a shindig, convince themselves it's somehow appropriate to align themselves with the same crowd who voted to establish English as the "national language," in a, yes, subtle, but still totally transparent show of demographic-specific racism--largely because they are pro-life?

I feel a little Elisa, freaking out like this, and I mean that nicely, but the people at the front of this room (and noplace else in it, as these tax cuts for which they are so enthusiastically cheering are not going to benefit anyone below the second highest tax bracket) control the world right now, and that is insanity.

But I'm boring myself, even.

*

Oh, but I like Paul Begala. Even if I can't look at him without thinking of Chris Kattan.