One of the pleasures of this season as an expat is to wake up and have the chance to watch the previous night’s political cavalcade. After the Democrat’s incredibly orchestrated show, I was looking forward to seeing the Republican return of serve. I started with Joe Lieberman.Joe Lieberman's 2008 RNC Address
More below . . .
First of all, the video quality difference between the Democratic and Republican web sites was stark to say the least. Simply, it was HD versus cell phone video camera quality. It’s like the Democrats knew the world was watching and cared about what they saw while the Republicans are showing their convention with the same quality as the hidden camera footage of their pre-Gustav, Saturday night partying. But then again, with Joe Lieberman up, maybe they felt they had something to hide (other than George W. Bush who’s video address is absent from the RNC 2008 site).
It seems, through Lieberman’s address, that McCain and the Republicans coming along again. They embrace timelines in Iraq, tire inflation, and now the necessity of change in Washington. Essentially, farmer Joe was telling the Republican conventioneers that he was cutting off the slop in the trough. Their lukewarm reaction was palatable. I loved the shot of the pensive Barbara Bush listening to the backhanded trashing of her son’s partisan legacy with calls to put partisanship behind and to embrace the rabble as Americans first.
The fan shots showed the obligatory head nodding and the occasional look of "Why is this pro-abortion guy talking to us?" of the audience. Joe couldn’t have expected more when designing a speech that tells authoritarians their crusading authority figure is suspect, without any obligatory statements of praise. All the while his friend McCain is running to adopt as much of Bush’s support as he can, most evident in his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Lieberman talked about an America that does not exist for the vast majority of the attendees when he talked about the real problems many Americans face and our collective responsibility to face them. He was talking to Phil Gramm’s non-whiners.
As he went one to address his fellow Democrats and Independents (can you be both?) the crowd listened patiently as he stated that these are not ordinary times and McCain was no ordinary candidate. On that we can agree. His complete reversal in eight years on so many issues, moral stances, and circles of friends shows McCain to be a political animal who will do or say anything to reach the brass ring he has coveted for so long.
One of Lieberman’s biggest ovations came when he referred to McCain as a man, "Our allies will trust and our enemies will fear." In light of the St. Paul police state tactics, I wondered in which category the Republican conventioneers would put a guy like me?