Between a busy week and problems I’ve had with the UHF on my TV set (I use only cutting edge technology), I’ve yet to actually watch the Republican National Convention proceedings. I’ll rectify that tonight (suggestions for suitable drinking game welcome), but in the meantime I’m just sorting through news and blog coverage. A couple of highlights worth pointing out:
William Saletan has been giving some terrific commentary over at Slate (here, here, here, here, here and here). He sometimes cedes points too easily (like the odd notion that Arnold lived under the yoke of Communism), but he’s passionate and razor-sharp in his dissection of the bloated rhetoric of the speeches of the convention. Go read.
Meanwhile, Dan Kennedy has also pointed this out, but Greater Boston’s John Carroll has a hilarious Campaign Journal dispatch on the Terminator’s speech. His takedown of Healey and company last night is also great.
All of the speeches - especially Zell Miller’s - make you wonder what the Republicans were thinking going for a slash and burn convention, rather than a feel-good one like they had in 2000. New Donkey blog speculates.
Politics are a show first and foremost, but these conventions used to be partly about unfurling the party’s platform. There’s been some controversy this year over the privacy of the platform committee. But the platform itself seems to be missing in action. It’s certainly not featured on the GOP, RNC, or BC04 homepages. In fact, I challenge anyone to find this year’s GOP platform in less than 10 minutes of Internet research. I can’t, other than the NYT copy I happened to have bookmarked, one that is no longer linked to from their convention coverage page.
Finally, the most surreal bit - if you overlook the Bush twins’ appearance - has been the tidbit (reported by Michael Crowley) that the opening night reception was called “R: The Party.” Sheesh. Not only are the GOP conventioneers shamelessly setting their anti-gay screeds to disco music, they’re taking on the cheesiest aspects of gay circuit culture in their event promotion.
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