Thursday, September 4, 2008

John McCain's RNC Speech: Live! (Almost)


Image from AmericaBlog

I'm writing this as I watch John McCain's speech at the Republican National Convention. I'm writing this live, but there's no point in constant updates. . .I don't get that kind of traffic, folks!

But I thought it might be fun to write a couple of notes as they occur to me, just for the heck of it. So, here we go. . .

- McCain's wearing a lot of makeup, and has thinned his comb-over a bit.

- He's trying mightily to be "amped up" and dynamic. It almost works.

- The massive backdrop with changing imagery is working to McCain's detriment, with the newly built "town square" catwalk thing. From the vantage point of the camera, he's got either solid blue or solid green behind him all the time. Dynamite for Stephen Colbert's green-screen challenge!

- For all of McCain's complaints about Barack Obama's "platitudes," this speech seems like an endless stream of them.

- Uh-oh, he's doing a "What I'll do/What he'll do" list. . .sounds a lot like Grandpa Simpson.

- Republicans applaud. Almost. Every. Single. Sentence.

- "Empower parents with choice?" Oh, he's talking about schools.

- Big yawn from audience member, followed by creepy McCain grin, followed by McCain verbal stumble. A great metaphor for the whole campaign.

- Lots of right-wing talking points, many buzzwords: "activist judges," "evil," and of course, lots and lots of uses of "my friends" and "my dear friends." Not a lot of meat on the buzzword bones yet though.

- McCain's energy level certainly fluctuates. Whiz-bang at first, then droning, a little pep, then snoozefest.

- He said he "has the scars to prove it" then smiled. The inappropriate smile/smirk is one thing I hope we can dispose of in our President. Hate it.

- Oh my GOD, another Viet Nam story. We know what happened, it's been hashed and rehashed endlessly, even in this abbreviated convention. We get it. I don't think I'm being insensitive here. I just think that if they can constantly mine his activities of 40 years ago, they don't have a right to say we can't question his actions of 30 years ago, or his wife's of 20 years ago. . .

- He's amping up again, he must be getting close to the climax. . .

- GOP crowd is in a frenzy over, what to me is just a bunch of "Freedom!" "God!" "America!" "Fight!" I soooo don't get it.

EDITOR'S NOTE: In the off-chance that a right-winger stumbles by this post, and says, "Of course you don't get freedom, God, America, fight. . .you're a liberal." That's not what I meant. Those words have long become slogans more than words in conservative speeches, and they're in every speech. So why did McCain's recitation of them inspire such a frenzy?

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