Durst writes: "The festive conservatives were so successful at concealing their core convictions, that at times it was difficult to discern which party was nominating whom."

Political satirist Will Durst. (photo: WillDurst.com)

The Stealth Convention

By Will Durst, Humor Times

02 September 12

nd now a few words about the Republican National Convention. AKA: Women with Big Hair and the Men in White Shoes Who Love Them. And white certainly was the operative word in Tampa. Mashed potatoes on paper plates with a side of leeks white.

Had to feel bad for the one black guy the networks kept cutting to during the speeches. They tried everything to make him look like a crowd. Different camera angles. Probably had his own wardrobe assistant. "Now put on the cowboy hat. Okay. Okay. Let's try a handlebar mustache." Must have been someone's driver.

The first day of this GOP quadrennial confab got canceled for the second consecutive conference due to a hurricane bearing down on the city of New Orleans. The only two tropical storms to threaten the Crescent City since Katrina. Hey, guys, want some crow sprinkles on that karma cone?

But any worry about the optics of unrestrained celebration while parts of the country drowned faded fairly quickly. "Oh, quit your belly aching. At least your pesky drought is over." And with that, the convention shifted into stealth mode.

The festive conservatives were so successful at concealing their core convictions, that at times it was difficult to discern which party was nominating whom. "We're saving Medicare." "The Party of Diversity." "Our Platform May Say No Abortions, No Exceptions, But We Haven't Even Read It." "Dubyah Who?" "Mitt What?"

The only speaker to mention Mitt's name out loud on purpose was Ann Romney in a gracious and endearing turn. Facing the tall task of climbing the plateau of humanizing her spousal cyborg, this mother of five boys constructed an entire flight of stairs by herself. But with a husband stiffer than Rick Santorum on a gay pride parade float, it was the basement stairwell of what needs to be skyscraper scaffolding. Baby steps.

Paul Ryan growled the requisite Veep Nominee pit-bull snarl. Then gave 40 minutes worth of credence to the Romney pollster who proclaimed earlier in the week, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers." The Janesville Congressman trotted out more bad lies than Employees Day at St. Andrews. The Old Course.

Chris Christie solidly wedged himself into a fail-safe slot for the next round in the event of a Romney/Ryan November stumble. As did Condoleezza Rice, albeit more elegantly. But Marco Rubio stole the show, positioning himself as a possible impediment to Christie and Condi's scramble for 2016's money. If there is any money by then.

Normally these convention gatherings are to spontaneity what Richard Simmons is to mule skinning. Lots of shiny, smooth seamless spandex. A three-day holiday in a hall full of Ken dolls. But in a dubious celebrity stretch, some soon-to-be ex-staffer woke Clint Eastwood from a nap to upstage the nominee's acceptance speech by losing an argument with an empty chair.

Following Dirty Harry speaking to an imaginary president, Romney spoke of his phantom agenda. The general consensus was he needed to give the "Speech of His Life," and the good news is, he did. The bad news: that was it. Great for the base. "Meh" for everybody else.

So now it's on to Charlotte where the Democrats will throw a counter spin to their mirror image of this carefully orchestrated boogie-down. Charlotte and Tampa in the dead of summer. And these are our great political minds at work? Something indeed is horribly awry.

The New York Times says Emmy-nominated comedian and writer Will Durst "is quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today." Check out the website: Redroom.com to buy his book or find out more about upcoming stand-up performances. Or willdurst.com.

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+44 # Buddha 2012-09-02 20:18

The question is whether the Dems will be able to in their convention: 1) stay away from the hyperbole and lies, and thereby making a clear distinction between them and the GOP, and 2) reclaim some Progressivism instead of their recent corporatism? Many of the Left is perfectly aware that the evisceration of the Middle-class by neo-liberalism and off-shoring of jobs has been going on for 30 years, over both Dem and GOP administrtaions . Are the Dems going to just offer more platitudes and empty rhetoric in this regard, or finally a true CHANGE of course? Most of us who were in Occupy protests are fed up with Dems selling American workers out, and then trying to make it all better by increasingly unsustainable social programs to address the impoverishment these policies are creating. If we can rescue the American Middle-class and get some wage growth, it would address most of our issues, falling tax revenues, increasing strain on Social programs, etc.

+35 # Ralph Averill 2012-09-03 03:22

"If we can rescue the American Middle-class and get some wage growth..."
Amen to that, brudda Buddha.
The 30 year long spiral downward in the value of wages should be the issue of the day. Paul Krugman is the only member of the MSM that I know of to bring the subject up repeatedly.

+2 # Barbara K 2012-09-03 11:10

Here is the link to the promises the President was able to keep:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-kept/

+7 # kalpal 2012-09-03 12:23

Its a fascinating notion that any president can keep campaign promises while the opposition party is bound and determined to stop him at every turn. I was told earlier today that the Democrats had such massive majorities in both houses that they were unstoppable. This is of course a common right wing lie or a plain bit of abominable ignorance. I will let you decide. I fully understand that lying is the finest arrow the GOP has in its quiver and that it is used every day several times a day. Now why do you find such lies to be adorable?

+62 # fdawei 2012-09-02 22:47

Will Durst,
Republicans now have you cursed
For their empty rhetoric you have dispersed
With their fake campaign bubble now burst
And their bruised egos now to be nursed
I hope they all go down the drain headfirst
In the aftermath of Issac, submersed.

+30 # Ralph Averill 2012-09-03 03:23

Applause!

+14 # dick 2012-09-03 03:17

The tragedy, of course, is that these stupefying conventions & campaigns WORK. They are staged to meet a Demand. The GOPers may be on to something to limit access to voting. If you watch a convention without being paid handsomely to do so, you should not be allowed to vote? If you think GOPers are anti-BIG SPENDING, you should not be allowed to vote. If you think Dems favor Main St. over Wall St., you're nuttier than Clint Eastwood. Send $$ to Liz; vote for Senate & House; batten down hatches.

+16 # Vegan_Girl 2012-09-03 03:49

The problem is that the Democratic Party is NOT the opposite of GOP. The Democratic Party is also corrupt, has drifted to the right, it is subservient to corporations. It feeds the war machine, it does not stand up to polluters, it does not stand up for working class Americans. It caters to the richest 1%.

Unless the Democratic Party is re-taken by progressives, they will be unable to mount an effective opposition to the GOP.

+13 # lexy677 2012-09-03 09:38

Yes but one battle at a time. Right now the choice is between two crooks; one of whom will allow you a modicum of dignity while robbing you blind and the other who would reduce you to the level of a Bangladeshi peasant...while robbing you AND depriving you of your privacy dignity and freedom of choice. Lets defeat the republicans first, then we can turn to taking over the democratic party. If they win this election, its all over, they will make it virtually impossible through various "voting and re-redistrictin g chicaneries" to remove them from power. One battle at a time Vegan girl, one battle at a time.

+2 # bmiluski 2012-09-04 12:14

I agree. And if you want to talk about a 3rd party........th at has to be started at the grass roots level.

+6 # WolfTotem 2012-09-03 04:22

Aspartam-coated Joseph Goebbels-Lite.

0 # bmiluski 2012-09-04 12:15

Oh no I disagree. This is a full-bodied Goebbels.

+28 # overanddone 2012-09-03 04:37

The GOP: Cowards, Fops, Liars, Dandys and on the whole, displaying totally anti American values. The party is owned by billionaires, ponying up money to let a flock of yahooos who think they lost the civil war on a technicality, to make buffoons out of themselves, voting against their interest and the interest of the country to say they stand with the rich white guys. Pitiful

+29 # vgirl1 2012-09-03 04:59

It will always be true that this TPrepublican section of white America cares not about the truth. Their interest lies strictly in getting that Black man out of THEIR White House and going back to the days when the nation followed the falacy of white supremeacy and minority supression. To this segment it matters not what harm the party did or may do to them or the country in the short or lng run, as long as those two priorities come to be.

+9 # lexy677 2012-09-03 09:52

You are right. The sad thing is that almost nobody in the media; even on progressive sites like this would address this issue. It is the elephant in the room. It appears to me that there is an unacknowledged conspiracy among white men and women in general not to acknowledge this fundamental fact which explains the relative success of the Republican party over the last 4 decades. We are hiding our collective heads in the sand. Unless we address this issue,we would never solve the problems we face in America. We would always have the specter of crypto-facist organizations like the Republican party and their racist cohorts; the tea party; taking advantage of this racist sentiment to exploit the poor and uninformed white men and women to vote them into power.

+8 # mjc 2012-09-03 08:27

Hit the nail on the head, Will Durst. Agree that there much of interest coming out of the Republican convention except the cover-up of their anti-abortion, no exception, plank. I could not watch any of it except to note which stage of the torture we were in. Wish I had seen Eastwood's comments. He himself must have had some psychotherapy sessions at one time; the empty chair is one of the effective tools therapists use to open their patients minds and mouths.

+14 # Texas Aggie 2012-09-03 08:39

A note on Robertson's ability to move hurricanes is that he is responsible for the damage that is being done in Louisiana. His charity ought to pay up, and the good people of LA need to hold him responsible for the damage.

And did anyone notice that the levees held this time, not like under the former president who thought that spending on things like infrastructure was dumb?

+1 # BobbyLip 2012-09-03 09:07

"Must have been someone's driver." I know this was a joke, and I generally agree with Durst, but to assume that no African-America n can be a Republican is pretty much the same as assuming they can all tap dance. In a word, racist. Inadvertent, I'm sure, but isn't it always?

+8 # RODNOX 2012-09-03 10:39

i think the larger point here is that a black republican is dumber to be a republican than a white man is

0 # juliajayne 2012-09-03 14:58

It hit me wrong as well, BL. And maybe Rod has a point, but still, that one line kept me from enjoying the article.

+7 # unitedwestand 2012-09-03 17:36

There is a faction of people that think that there is no difference between the two parties, and in some ways that may be true because many of us have become too aware that the machinations of the banksters and the military dictate much of the world's events.

However, the choice for me is clear, we still have a president
who has some ethics and has more understanding of the problems the people of the nation faces. His duo frat boys opposition is THE OPPOSITE in every way. It is not just that they were both from ridiculously rich backgrounds and are only being gratuitous when they feign understanding of the people's needs, its all the other issues like religion, birth control, women's rights, labor rights and just plain and simply their dishonesty.

IRomney is an etch-a-sketch idea man, Ryan is his manipulator.

No way will I protest vote, Romney/Ryan will finish the job of destroying the country that the Bush Administration so well succeeded at. But I will protest vote locally to change Congress with more Progressive candidates if I think they can win, otherwise I'm checking the D slots all the way.

0 # lollie 2012-09-04 12:22

Do we really need these guys??? I mean it's like that guy that just won't show up for work. How long do you let that go on?

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