Coffee and Convention

I had all sorts of reasons to stay in and alternately switch between CSPAN and PBS's convention coverage. I pretty much caught last night's collection of speeches and cut over to Public TV here and there, mostly catching by coincidence David Brooks' unsuccessful attempts to sound witty and erudite (the foreign policy of the Democrats is to try to get France to like us better? Bullshit, David). On the other hand, Brooks at least attempted to interpret, as misguided and inane as it was. The couple of times Mark Shields voiced an "opinion," it wasn't. Instead he took the classic pundit tack of summarizing random points while desperately trying to straddle the fence. Look for Shields to pore over public opinion surveys in the days to come before firmly asserting that he was in the majority's camp all along--whatever position it eventually takes.

That's one reason why I can't stand punditry, particularly on the so-called "liberal" side of the fence. At least the right wing spins out talking points with a certain degree of grim discipline--if the wingnut pundits are told to call "black" "white" and vice versa, they'll insist upon this even if they find themselves confronted with the evidence. So called "liberals" will find a way to digress into essays about the various shades of gray.

Billmon of Whiskey Bar has a pretty good post as to his own feelings towards day one, and I don't find much to disagree with. Like him, I was a little surprised (see yesterday's post)--the Kerry team has been spinning the theme of "accentuate the positive," and this was what the press dutifully reported over the weekend. However, some of my fears as to looking too meek to challenge the awful record of Bush were mitigated. All three main event speakers made pointed references to several salient points--the stolen election of 2000, the ridiculous attempt to go-it-alone on foreign policy, the assault on civil liberties, and the idiotic tax cuts--especially during wartime, which Clinton alluded to once or twice, but which should be a major point to hammer home. The criticism was valid without coming across as shrill--indeed, Gore and Clinton BOTH did the humor thing (for the record, I actually like Gore's stuff a little better, but Clinton won the oratory contest hands down, as Billmon succinctly noted by comparing Clinton as Mozart to the other's Salieri).

Interwoven was an attempt to present Kerry as a reasoned alternative to a president who spends money like it's water, goes to war on a whim (insulting almost all of our major allies in the process, not just France), and can't be bothered to ask his "base" (i.e., the fat cats who make a lot of money--hey, like Bill Clinton!) to lift a finger when it comes time to ask Americans to do their duty/pay their fair share. Of course, I'm biased, but I thought the juxtaposition came across well.

My own take on David Brooks, by the way, is that he's giving us a glance at next month's Republican convention, which I expect to be less a coronation of King Dubya the Dunce (because they have NOTHING they can give him credit for) and more of a "take a whipping stick to the french-loving (I was going to write "francophile," but that term might be giving them a little too much credit) liberals from the northeast"--and pay no attention to southerner John Edwards or Bush's own predilection to pour money down the Iraqi drain. The war is going well--honest--just trust us on that, pay no attention to the news reports and keep your head firmly planted in the sand--or elsewhere.

But that's another month away, so I'll finish by noting another of Billmon's points regarding last night--as he (probably correctly) assumes, last night was the equivalent of a bone thrown to those of us who've watched the last three years with justifiable anger. Look for a sweetening of tone as the rest of the public catches up with the news (indeed--last night's LOCAL TV coverage of the convention offered about five seconds of Clinton and at least that much time to Teresa Heinz Kerry's "shove it." They also incorrectly reported that she had been quoted accurately. However, given the limited attention span of the public, I expect that by Thursday night, all this will be forgotten. In fact, I wish local TV would shove it).

By the way--I can't resist noting a different take on the convention from my own: Alexander Cockburn has his own thoughts, posted here and here. The guy DOES have a few points, like the fact that coffee, bread and fresh vegetables have gotten remarkably better over the last thirty years (thanks to small producers). Hey, that's one way of focusing on the positive.

I'll be catching a good bit of the convention this week--well, I was a political science major on college. Admittedly, my focus was international relations and political theory, but I took at least a few general survey courses--and can stand to save some money this week. Also, it is most definitely summer here in the Gret Stet, so staying indoors is also a matter of ensuring a degree of comfort.