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The Current Crisis
The Democrats in Convention Assembled
What a tiresome lot, and that’s not even including the moron contingent.
WASHINGTON — At this Democratic National Convention I am going to be particularly interested in the crowds on the floor. Who cares about what Bill Clinton says? He does not mean it anyway. In the 1990s he governed like a Republican after saying that “the age of Big Government is over.” Incidentally, he governed pretty well. He would have made a good moderate Republican, so long as he had good conservative majorities in the House and the Senate to keep him — you will excuse the word — honest. Now, of course, he has committed another of his episodic tergiversations, writing a book in praise of behemoth government, as though the 1990s never happened.
The same can be said for Senator Jean-François Kerry. In 2004 he accepted his party’s presidential nomination and continued his fiction that he was a war hero, ludicrously saluting the throng at the convention with “I’m John Kerry and I am reporting for duty.” As though the rest of the nation had forgotten that he came home from the Vietnam war protesting it and appeared before a taped congressional inquiry to incriminate his fellow servicemen with lies. Then he flew off to France to be used as a pawn by the Communist Vietnamese — war hero indeed. Possibly Senator Harry Reid could be interesting if he would only tell us what he knows about that cow he has been rumored to canoodle with, and, to be sure, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is always good for a few laughs.
Yet the speakers at this red, white, and blue podium are a pretty tiresome lot, certainly when compared with the younger generation of conservative Republicans at Tampa. Think of the wave facing the Democrats in the years to come: Paul Ryan and Chris Christie, Nikki Haley and Susanna Martinez, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, Bob McDonnell and Rand Paul. Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal did not even have to show up. By comparison the Democrats have a cohort of has-beens, plus Caroline Kennedy. She is quite elegant, but she is not equal to taking on a whole generation of conservative Republicans.
Still the Democrats milling about on the floor have interesting faces. There are the hard-faced union types, mostly men, and they are angry. There are the feminists, the race hustlers, and the other vested interests: environmentalists, consumerists, school teachers — the kind of people that we at The American Spectator call practitioners of Masked Politics. They claim a special fervor for the environment, the consumer, for children, that sort of thing. Yet behind their Masks they are standard issue Big Government meddlers.
Then there are the poor souls that compose the Democratic base. They are the voters to whom the Democratic Super PACs direct their mendacious messages. They get fired up upon hearing that the Republican candidate Mitt Romney has killed a woman, probably more than one. They really believe Romney is a felon, probably a misdemeanant too and he put his dog on the roof of his car or vice versa. They believe that the legendary one percent of the income earners who pay 35-40 percent of income taxes should, out of fairness, pay more. In fact, they believe that this legendary one percent can carry the entire burden of Obamacare, Social Security, and a few other entitlements along the way. We call these galoots the moron vote. I have watched them on the floor of the convention. They are highly excitable. They wear funny red, white, and blue outfits, patriotic hats and glasses. They are perfect dupes.
Now the Republicans probably have a selection of morons too. But I do not believe the Republicans’ morons respond to the their party’s message of alarm about deficit spending, government budgets, and foreign policy. They are the believers in theories that the earth is flat. They promptly put an old sock around their necks to ward off impending maladies. They do not need Obamacare. They have eccentric eating habits and here they cross over with the Democrats’ moron vote. I believe I spotted several at the Republican convention in Tampa. I know I have been spotting many more morons at the Democratic convention. Several were at the podium.
Toby Harnden, the perceptive British journalist who covers America for the Mail Online, has been traveling with the President and he says things are different from 2008. The crowds are smaller. “There is a sullenness, even resentment, that was not present in 2008. Ask an Obama supporter,” Harnden writes, “about their man and as often as not you will get a few words about him and then a demeaning attack on Romney and Ryan.” Moreover, Harnden has noted that something else has changed, “Obama tends to look emptily past rather than at his audiences. It’s as if the light in his eyes has gone out.” It will take a lot of morons this year to light up his sad eyes.
About the Author
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
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Who Knows?| 9.5.12 @ 12:03PM
Keep up the “moron” theme. Even Limbaugh has noted your take.
Personally, I prefer using the word “retarded”, because it’s even more loaded, and reviled—possibly.
As an avid backyard mechanic, with a ’77 Toyota truck, the tune up still involves doing the timing right---mustn’t retard it, too much!
When it comes to humans, shouldn’t we consider both nature and nurture, when trying to understand their behavior?
People are either born as a moron, or not. Nature strikes!
However, don’t forget nurture---public education, in the good old US of A, seems to me to be what’s responsible for the huge majority of fools you describe at the jackass convention, as well as their emoting, not thinking, supporters.
Loads of born morons, AND brainwashed to boot!
What a country.
Appleby| 9.6.12 @ 7:02AM
"Party Like It's 1968" doesn't seem to be catching fire, does it? The people who are old enough to think they remember 1968 are either fully aware of where that led them (I saw many of us when my Mom and I went to see "The Big Chill" in the 1980s, looking rather guilty and uncomfortable as we nudged each other at salient lines) or they have, as the Mythbusters put it, "Rejected your reality and substituted [their] own." (There really couldn't have been seven billion people at Woodstock.) I haven't been watching the DNC , but the clips on the news of the delegates shows angry aging cranks whirring and glaring and muttering. I remember those people cluttering up my university in the real 1968 when I was trying to get an education. Somehow or other whatever I have been trying to do, those Daleks have always been in my way.
drudge ette obama| 9.6.12 @ 7:13AM
I, too, remember them in college. Always talking about multinationals, capitalist pigs, abortion, abortion, abortion...... Things weren't the Green Agenda yet - Sesame Street was just indoctrinating that generation. The DNC convention is a fiasco for them and ripping good fun for RNCers.
drudge ette obama| 9.6.12 @ 7:09AM
The real key to identifying a moron is to count the"thumb presses" per minute as the accentuate a point. David Axelrod is particularly enthusiatic with his thumb presses when his hair isn't hanging in his face - way too much hair grease. He forgets to do it, though, and prefers the pointing finger, an interview no-no. Axelrod leads the morons and Valerie Jarrett follows closely behind. What miserable souls.
I just watched Elizabeth "Pow Wow Chow" Warren at the DNC convention. Pow Wow Chow is dull beyond dull, and not a very good cook if she has to plagerize a 20th Century NY chef's recipe for one allegedly handed down by her tomahawk chop of a 1/64th grandmother - if that is even true. Massachusetts deserves someone with personality or good looks, or both. Pow Wow Chow has no Pow.
Bill Clinton reminded me of someone who just got made up at the local funeral home. Plus, Bill Clinton froths at the mouth as he speaks - something that used to bug me 12 plus years ago. Still does.
All I could think about when Bill was speaking was Monica, his lying deposition on television, and sexual exploits. Seeing him again was somewhat bothersome. I wonder if Monica was watching and screaming, how could I have done him?
DTOM| 9.6.12 @ 10:06AM
Notice that Fauxahontas wore pants because Clinton was around...
Hillary does, too, come to think of it....
Ewwww!
DTOM
soljerblue| 9.6.12 @ 6:29PM
Hillary wears trousers because she has the ugliest ankles ever seen on a female. Or, maybe because she wants to remind Bill who's really in charge.
drudge ette obama| 9.6.12 @ 7:09AM
Frankly, I am wondering where Jane Fonda is? Will she be a mystery speaker with an empty chair? She's probably at a Botox Party.
Obama would probably be happier sitting on the couch with his adolescent daughters in some slightly discomforting & strangely Lolita-like, group tv-time hug than being a President. He is an empty man. I would have suggested that Clint Eastwood had used an empy suit rather than the chair. It would have been pretty point on. Clint did just fine with the chair, it gets better with multiple viewings.
With the No God vote fiasco, I eagerly await tonight's show. Just as I could not have imagined what has happened already, I look forward to tonight's last course, sans balloons, sadly.
Von Mises Jr| 9.6.12 @ 8:35AM
I came to the realization channel surfing past the Democrat Convention that we have entered the "Brave New World."
But instead of government creating worker bees bred for specific manual tasks, we have only progressed to the point where we created drones that protect whales in dinghy boats, wear pink leotards, drive golf carts and lick each other.
I think something went wrong with the software program.
Anthony| 9.6.12 @ 8:36AM
What a hoot. The party of "new ideas" had to have a sociopathic liar and serial sexual predator, from the past, in order to save the Muslim's bacon.
Yep, the party of "new ideas" had to showcase the serial liar whose presidency was saved by the Republican majority in congress. "The Era of Big Government is Over"!!! Yeah, right. How can we fool them today???
The only thing that didn't happen was chief sitting bullshit Warren didn't actually speak with a forked tongue.
The Democrat Party is one sick, sclerotic, group of losers.
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.6.12 @ 8:52AM
Emmett,
wel spoken.
Sadly, a lot of the morons did not see or comprehend what happeed last night. They are already "in the bag" for their goodies.
Sir, it is amazing to me yhat this race could be "tight".
spike59| 9.7.12 @ 6:30AM
it's only 'tight' when pollsters oversample democrats by 10-15%...
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.6.12 @ 8:55AM
PS:
I have read several well written novels based upon the resuts of this election. (Brrrrrrrrr)
Roscoe| 9.6.12 @ 9:07AM
Emmett, you write: "It will take a lot of morons this year to light up his sad eyes."
I have absolutely no doubt that there will be an ample number of dim bulbs to get it done.
Louisiana Joe| 9.6.12 @ 11:50AM
It is a sad day when one of our two major parties worships at the altar of a sexual pervert and horrible President, Bill Clinton. He sexually harassed state employees, sexually assaulted many women and raped one for sure, and took advantage of misguided young interns. Then he lied to the nation, before congress and in court resulting in fines, financial judgments, and disbarment. He engaged with his wife (in name only) in crooked land and futures deals and some of his crooked business partners went to jail and others mysteriously died. He lied to the country and raised taxes on the middle class. The only thing that made this man successful was an adoring media and a Republican Congress.
What a rock star Democrat, what a man to be proud of, what an individual for stupid Democrat women to fanaticize about. I give you the best the Democrat party has to offer, Bill Clinton. Pathetic.
Colin Foy| 9.6.12 @ 7:39PM
C'mon folks, the DemocRats want God in their platform, it's just that his name is Allah, his chief prophet was Muhammad (Not Jesus) and his ascension into heaven was made upon the back of a white angelic hoarse like beast named Buraq (boo-rahk). Sound familiar?
RWinks| 9.7.12 @ 11:16AM
Insane Marxist Gangsters pretty well covers everyone at the DNC.
RWinks| 9.7.12 @ 11:24AM
Oh, and by the way, Clinton has what the gamblers call a "tell". Remember, "I did not have sex with that woman"? When he points his finger it means "I'm telling a whopper".
Brian Richard Allen | 9.8.12 @ 11:51AM
.... Caroline Kennedy ... is quite elegant ....
Insofar, while we're , talking about morons, as a thicker-than-two-planks dumb cluck may be made to appear so.