It was a little like the end of The Sopranos.

You knew it was coming; still, it is so hard to prepare oneself for finalities.

I don’t know what I will watch now that the Republican Convention has ended.

Yes, I admit it is horrible, but when my daughter said, “Mommy, let’s practice my addition and subtraction cards,” I asked her to wait.

“John McCain's speaking,” I explained.

“Is that ever going to end?” she asked her eyes bulging.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Tomorrow, unfortunately.”

She stormed out of the room to watch TV, I presume.

I wouldn’t know. I was too enthralled watching McCain. On a speaking level I must say he scored much higher than I would have guessed. I’d easily give his performance a seven.

But when expectations are low and people do better than anticipated, they always gain more points than they should.

McCain, given his war suffering and putting fellow soldiers before departing from his own gates of hell,  is a man of character. It says so much about him.

So, too, does the cheating on his first wife with Cindy, his currently handler, I mean, wifey.

Listening to his speech, his personal story was unbelievably compelling.

His politics were ridiculously absurd. So, too, was the audience. Have you ever seen so many white people? Looking at Cindy McCain alone is like staring at two Caucasian women simultaneously.

Multi-racial was NOT a word that one would use to describe that audience.  So, if he can’t even find any delegates with nary an ounce of color to fill his hall -- town hall, that is -- how is he going to unite this country? Hey, isn’t Arizona that state where all those “Minutemen” watch for (and like to shoot) border crossers? And aren’t they putting up a giant fence there? Sounds very Berlin Wallish to me.

So how is he suppose to see all of us as one when he still buys into Bush’s insane upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper, upper class tax biases?

The notion that those who have so much when given special tax breaks will then allow their money to trickle down to the middle and lower classes is absurd.

So is four, five, oh, hell, seven houses.

Just a question. If Sarah Palin weren’t so pretty and telegenic, would she have been chosen?

As a mother – that is one who watches the Republican Convention while her daughter is watching who knows what – I had to ask myself, shouldn’t Sarah’s baby be in his crib instead of hauling him out night after night in front of klieg lights and some 80,000 screaming people? He must have been frightened.

Her teenage daughter is pregnant. Must she be paraded, too? What is this: a Jamie Lynne Spears re-do? Can’t her daughter have a little privacy? Though, I must admit the close-up of the faux “fiancé” holding hands with his “bride-to-be” was priceless. He must have thought: ‘All I have to do is say is I’ll marry her and I get a free trip, a fancy hotel and all the room service I want?”

Nobody can twist a negative into a positive like those always thinking Republicans. Ah, but those earnest CSI detectives will find the sticky fingerprints of Karl Rove.

I wish McCain had beat Bush eight years ago. Had he, we would never have gotten into Iraq. A person who has seen the horrors of war, who has been a prisoner of it, would not go needlessly into the night and start one. Had he been elected, I think he would have concentrated on Afghanistan. On that, Barack Obama and he are probably not far a part.

Had Gore gone against McCain and not Bush and had not the egomaniacal spoiler Ralph Nader entered the race, this country would not be where it is because we would have had a President Gore, decent health care, cleaner air, alternative energy: the Got-Done list would go on and on. 

Seeing all the veterans in the Republican audience from World War 11, and the Vietnam War, and listening to McCain repeatedly say, “fight, fight fight, and America is great!” I couldn’t help but think of the Elvis Costello song, “A Man Out of Time.”

John McCain seems like a decent guy, but one who is not only out of time, but also for whom too much time has passed and for whom there is no presidential future. The last thing we need is more fighting. McCain is not the man nor is Palin the woman to restore this country to what it was once.

To misquote Costello, I hope America has not become -- “A Country Out of Time.”

By Dawn Yun

 

Labels: By Dawn Yun, Cindy McCain, John McCain, Political Mama, Sarah Palin

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