Still out of touch - The Republican convention

The best thing I can say about the four days of cognitive dissonance that was the Republican National Convention is that the balloon drop went well. The rest of it was a mess. It was totally surreal — like Pleasantville meets Fox News — and I realized the Republican Party has gotten so good at lying that they’ve actually started to believe the crap they’re trying to sell us.

First, they tried to act like it was no big deal that they didn’t invite the president. The cover story was he was needed in Washington. The truth is that nobody wants to forget the Bush/Cheney years ever happened more than the Republicans who elected them. It didn’t work, though, because around the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Gustav reminded us all of how badly this administration screwed the pooch three years ago. God knows political stagecraft better than the Republican Party.

The next day, they trotted out Laura Bush and Cindy McCain to take off their "Republican hats," put on their "American hats," and ask people to give money to hurricane victims. But I couldn’t take the first lady seriously talking about disaster relief in a white Oscar de la Renta suit. And I wondered why nobody told Cindy McCain it’s a bad idea to ask the 99.9 percent of us who make less than her to give money while she’s wearing a $300,000 outfit.

They also dusted off Fred Thompson (a.k.a. Foghorn Leghorn), fed him some good old timey dialogue, and had his wife Jerry convince him he was reading for a role in a Mike Nichols movie. He gave a perfectly unconvincing performance droning on about John McCain’s military record, as though crashing five planes is some kind of an accomplishment. The best part was when he talked about Sarah Palin (a.k.a. the Unknown Running Mate) and how her selection as vice president is being covered. In an odd attempt to get us to forget about the fact that he’s a millionaire Hollywood actor, he drawled, "she is from a small town, with small town values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family." Sorry, Fred, but I’ve seen "The Hunt for Red October" too many times to buy you playing the "regular guy."

Even cross-dressing Rudy Giuliani got into the act. He talked up the URM’s so-called executive experience, including her time as mayor of a town that’s half the size of Hunter College. And he said he was, "sorry that Barack Obama doesn’t feel that her hometown is cosmopolitan enough, is flashy enough," like he or any of his three wives (especially Judith) would ever move to Wasilla, Alaska.

Then came the URM herself: Sarah Palin, populist pitbull in lipstick. The biggest speech of her life was largely unremarkable but for the fact that she chided a press corps who she won’t allow to interview her and mocked a man who is without a doubt her professional and intellectual superior. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities," she said, apparently forgetting about the time she described her job as, "not rocket science, it’s $6 million and 53 employees." Really, it’s a glorified home owner’s association in a state subsidized by oil companies. The constitutional imperative to take over the presidency at a moment’s notice? That’s closer to rocket science.

John McCain’s speech was notable mostly for what wasn’t said. He didn’t mention President Bush by name, he wasn’t proud of his party’s record, and every time he talked about the people who have messed up Washington, he was talking to the people who have messed up Washington — like anybody believes they’ll just reform themselves. He spent so much time scolding Republicans and promising "change" that I thought he was going to morph into Barack Obama in a racially appropriate homage to Michael Jackson’s "Black or White" video.

McCain went on "Face the Nation" Sunday and promised to appoint Democrats (plural) to serve in his White House and his cabinet. "It’s gonna be the best people in America, the smartest people in America...We’ve got to have people who are the best and the brightest...I’ll also ask people who have struggled out there in the trenches to help people, to volunteer in their communities, who understand these problems at that level."

He’s so out of touch with reality that he doesn’t even realize that the person he’s describing is Barack Obama. He can think about that as they stand together at Ground Zero tomorrow, and for the next eight years. As for those lying Republicans, they can go sit in the corner for eight years and think about what they’ve done.