Fun with the RNC

So J forwarded to me a listing of the scheduled happenings at the RNC. Once again, it’s a hearty round of patting each other on the back for the obvious wisdom in choosing John McCain as the nominee. Unless he subsequently loses, in which case they'll invent some convoluted reason why it's not their fault.

In that vein, each day of the convention has a theme of one of John McCain’s values or virtues or delusional self-aggrandizing traits. Something, anyway. Each day is kicked off in the schedule with a quote from everybody’s favorite crazy old man, JMcC. Of particular amusement to me is the quote for day 2: Reform.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you are disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and correct them.

I guess if you view the drastic expansion of the federal state as a problem, you’re supposed to fix it by… participating in the expansion of the state? I think the portion of my brain that handles logic just exploded. Besides that fundamental issue, isn’t it telling that his Senatorialness thinks the only way to fix government is to join it? Apparently all of us citizens out here going about our lives shouldn’t expect other people to reform the government for us. Other people like THE FUCKING IGNUTS WE ELECTED TO RUN THE GOVERNMENT, PERHAPS? Pardon the outburst, but this is a rough election season for me. I guess he thinks one can't do anything to effectively reform the government from the outside. Should I be surprised he missed the whole petition for redress of grievances part of the amendment he hates the most? Probably not.

I also find amusing the RNC’s insistence McCain “has dedicated his career to taking on special interests and the status quo”. I can dismiss this particular bit of blatherskite with two simple words: Charles Keating. Additionally, we can note that Johnny Mac has no problems gutting the First Amendment to aid a particularly small special interest group of which he is a member. One might also, and I will, note the absolutely implausible idea of a guy who has spent the last 20 years in the U.S. Senate being a fighter against the status quo. McCain hasn’t quite ossified into his chair like others I could name (Byrd, Inouye, and Kennedy for starters) but he’s part of the freaking status quo. I have a voting age person in my house who wasn’t yet born the year he took office, but he’s gonna fight the status quo! I hope he starts by slapping the shit out of himself and Russ Feingold. I'll buy tickets for the PPV broadcast.

Moving on, day 3 is going to be a lecture on “Prosperity”. Given that McCain has so far in the election displayed the economic understanding of an incontinent tree frog, I can’t imagine how he thinks he’s qualified to discuss prosperity. A guy who has spent his entire life completely insulated from any real job market is perhaps not qualified to explain the American Dream and the achievement thereof to the rest of us. We can’t all spend our entire adult lives working for the gummint, John. Also, bringing out Carly Fiorina to talk about prosperity is kind of ironic, isn’t it? Should I call my buddies who lost their jobs after the HP-Compaq merger to ask their opinions? Or is the 50% drop in share price during her tenure as HP CEO sufficient evidence without resorting to anecdote? Again, we can’t all get millions of dollars in severance after running a multi-billion dollar company into the ground.

I’m glad I’m not going to Minneapolis for the convention, because my liver can’t take the amount of booze I’d have to drink to make it through. Listening to this crap sober for four days would make me wanna cockpunch (or crotchpunch, to be gender-neutral) every sumbitch wearing a GOP pin.