H.E.L.P.

It’s RSVP time for the DNP who seem to be AWOL from the action at the RNC in NYC – and they better smarten up before the GOP sends them packing… PDQ.
Having dipped in and out of the television coverage of the convention over the past three days (every time I sat down with the intention to watch, I was assaulted with speeches on Richard Nixon’s god-like power to inspire Republicanism, or visions of the Bush twins doing their updated ‘Sisters’ act – without the feathers, sadly -or of Dick Cheney, sneering that sneer that literally makes my gorge rise; I had to turn it off I tells ya!) I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m living in a dream world. A world where I have heretofore calmly and casually believed/accepted that good will out, and really (come on!) common sense must prevail.
The fact that Al Gore lost the last election was a nasty pinch, but explicable for a variety of reasons: Clinton exhaustion, the American habit of adoring that old time, plain spoken, charismatic religion-type leadership VS the worthy plodder sort, possible cheating and fixing in Florida (shocking, but not unheard of in the gangsterish dealings of party insiders) or a ‘maybe that’s just the way the cookie crumbled this time’ reality check. Hey, it happens – the constituency will correct itself.
And then – oh then, fellow marginalized readers – the Bush presidency itself should have easily and peasily done the trick. Following the first two years, which were a gimme – caught up as they were in 9/11, the aftermath, and then the war – the reality began to slowly, but surely catch up with the myth, belaying speed and causing setbacks, before chugging dispiritedly into a tunnel called The 9/11 Commission, which we should have come out of sadder and wiser, but Republican free of for at least the next four years.
So what happened in that tunnel? When I saw the loco-motive disappear, it was dragging the commission findings, the growing Abu Grhaib prisoner abuse scandal, the scathing Moore film, not to mention the crummy economy - a juddering caboose nearly pulling the train right off the tracks - the steady trickle of terrible truths surrounding the President’s top team and his own inarticulate impenetrable excuses over WMDs and mumbled connections between Saddam and al Qaeda that seemed to all but derail his leadership and silence any doubts that the man was concealing his intellectual light under some far off Texas tumbleweed.
Can we be blamed for thinking there was a light at the end of the tunnel? Sure, it was clear the Democrats had fielded a pretty feeble Presidential candidate, operating in a charisma-free zone, but it was also clear he was smart, able and at least adequate. And with the addition of snap on partner John Edwards, the future looked a little brighter – adding strength to strength… coupling age and experience with youth and passion. A human version of the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe.
Well, like the old saw goes, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but it was a Republican freight train, bearing down and emerging into the daylight stronger, more concentrated and with a momentum that now looks unstoppable.
TTFN…