This is my latest diatribe/ thinly disguised cry for help.
August 27, 2012.
Dear Mitt:
I write to express my disappointment at your decision to cancel today's festivities at the RNC Convention. I understand your scruples about going ahead with the Party's Party as Hurricane Isaac bears down on the region and the country is about to observe the seventh anniversary of Katrina. However, I feel that the GOP has missed a golden opportunity to reclaim the narrative and recast Hurricane Katrina as a triumph of Republican values. Consider the following, often overlooked, silver linings associated with that particular catastrophe:
1) Small government? Try so microscopic that it barely existed.
2) It encouraged self-reliance among the local, indigent, "urban" poor, especially when they realized that no federal assistance whatsoever was coming to their aid.
3) A triumph of the private sector-- Walmart was the only organization capable of distributing potable water.
4) Gun ownership (and use) shot up, if you'll pardon the expression, after the Hurricane in a clear vindication of the Second Amendment.
Under the banner "Heckuva Job!" you, Mitt, and the GOP could have finally claimed the post-Katrina, Mad Max-style hellscape as your own, a bold blueprint for the Republican vision of the future.
If you think that this proposal is a bit "out there," or as unconventional as wearing jeans without a nice, definite crease, then consider the alternatives. What are you going to do-- have McCain and Condie Rice speak at the convention and your running mate tout his decision to vote for the war in some sort of grotesque attempt at an Iraq War Redux? Now that was a fiasco.
Sincerely,
Bob