WASHINGTON — Laying the schedules of this year’s Democratic and
Republican conventions on my desk, I’m reminded of Bill Murray’s
frustrated outburst on the eve of the apocalypse in the 1984 film
Ghostbusters: “We’re talking real fire and brimstone here!
Dogs and cats sleeping together! End of the world stuff!” Perhaps
coincidentally, that film was set in New York City where
Republicans will soon be exploring their touchy-feely, sissy side.
Meanwhile, Democrats are preparing ready to beat their chests and
howl at the moon in a show of Beantown brawn next week.
The 2004 Democratic National Convention — despite a predictable
line-up of liberal speakers like Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and
Jimmy Carter — comes with an action movie tagline — “Stronger At
Home, Respected in the World” — worthy of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Of course, he’ll be in NYC talking about his feelings, so it’ll be
up to John Kerry to deliver his signature line, “Bring…it…on”
with an Austrian accent and a cigar stuck in the corner of his
mouth.
Or perhaps he can arrive for his nomination acceptance speech
hanging on a rope from a helicopter in full combat face paint and a
flak jacket. My personal request would be for the whole Democratic
entourage to spend a day at the Boston Aquarium, where Kerry could
reenact his much-touted rescue of Jim Rassmann over and over again
from every angle while sharks circle underneath. John Kerry’s Navy
swift boat crew is getting more stage time at the convention than
Hillary Clinton — dogs and cats sleeping together would make more
sense.
SOUND LIKE AN exaggeration? Then take a look at the hardnosed press
releases the DNC has been sending out to pump up reporters for the
spectacle they are about to witness in Boston. This includes an
invite to “open sessions” the first day of the convention with the
omnipresent Kerry hack, former Sen. Max Cleland, called “Basic
Training.” No further comment.
The rhetoric gets so brazen at times one almost expects the
Democrats to announce they’re sending the security detail home so
Kerry and his Band of Brothers can challenge al Qaeda and John
Ashcroft to a rumble in Southie. “I feel the excitement and energy
as the Convention gears up,” Cleland writes to reporters. “I look
forward to returning next month to Boston — the city where our
first American soldiers fought — to make history as veterans fight
once again.”
In one of these press release, Lt. Col. Sam Poulten, a delegate
and veteran of the recent Iraq campaign, compares working for John
Kerry to military service. “There is serving in the armed forces
and serving in the Party,” he explains, adding, “Democracy has to
be exercised. It’s like a muscle; if you’re not constantly using it
and exercising it, it atrophies. It turns to flab.” That’s right,
girly-boy, get out there and work your vote.
The Democratic Party hack writing the release notes that Poulten
“is steadfast in his support of the democratic process.” Apparently
Poulten is standing up to…whoever it is that is steadfast in
their opposition to the democratic process? Is there some 527 I
don’t know about out there running
don’t-get-out-the-vote-efforts?
Bobby Hanafin, a Vietnam vet and self-described “long-term
Republican,” is also featured in DNC material. Hanafin switched
party allegiances in 2000 because Democrats, despite supporting
every sovereignty-shredding proposal to come down the pike, are the
real patriots. “The theme of the DNC is patriotism,
because they [Republicans] are trying to steal it from us,”
Hanafin, one of Kerry’s Band of Brothers from Vietnam, said. Wait!
Are they calling Republicans “unpatriotic”? Haven’t the Democrats
spent the last three years telling us using such a term was the
cardinal sin of political discourse?
Hanafin also proudly notes that he has been an extra in three
feature films: Amistad, Gettysburg, and Gods
and Generals, a movie so bad I started thinking about seceding
from the theater halfway through. Seriously, it must be the first
Civil War movie to feel as long as the Civil War.
ANOTHER PRESS RELEASE promises that the convention will prove that
John Kerry and John Edwards have the “toughness” to “lead America
during difficult times.” They also have an unspecified Nixonian
“plan to keep us safe,” which may or may not depend on cooperation
with the unspecified foreign leaders who cannot wait for Kerry to
be elected. I’ve heard John Edwards called many things — a fake,
an ambulance chaser, a bottom feeder, even a fashionable man — but
tough? This is a first, I believe.
Even a press release about the size of the Press Pavilion —
“the largest multi-story, temporary building ever constructed in
the United States” — comes off as an exercise in braggadocio in
the hands of these testosterone-addled Dems: “The roof, weighing in
at 180,000 lbs., took six cranes to lift into place,” they write.
“Also, sixty tons of structural steel and dozens of rigging
stanchions were installed in the roof of the FleetCenter.”
Well, I don’t know about making America stronger, but the
Democrats have certainly made the FleetCenter stronger. That’s a
start for a ticket pushing a couple of guys who can’t stop
stroking, groping, and kissing each other in public. Gives new
meaning to the Band of Brothers, does it not?
