I suppose I shouldn't care. I mean, it's obvious the whole thing is a sham. I guess it bothers me because viewers might be sucked in by the jingoism. But who am I kidding — the reason the undecided voters are undecided is because they don't watch things like the news and political conventions. They watch COPS or something, I don't know.
As an aside, I find it kind of ironic that the Republicans are portraying themselves as civil rights champions. Now I know that a lot of the opposition to civil rights in the 60s came from southern Democrats, and that plenty of Republicans (not Bush Sr. or Thurmond) apparently supported civil rights. That's great. But they're leaving out two things. First, the southern Democrats were absorbed by the Republican party. They're still around, they've just switched teams. Second, both parties were much more diverse back then — there was plenty of room for liberals in the Republican party.
Yeah, there's some moderates in the party (McCain, Specter, Bloomberg). But they hardly lead the party.
And, of course, conservatives have done such a good job vilifying the word liberal that I doubt any sane liberal would join the Republican party.
By the way, I'm considering registering as a Republican. You know, take a hit for the team to try and push that party more to the center. Not sure I could handle it, though.|||109401407384484093|||Second Night of the RNC
Scooter|||Yuck - believe me, you don't want all the pretty pictures of George and Laura canoodling, or even all the pretty pictures of George and Dick canoodling that come with being a registered Republican. In my much younger, much stupider years, I believed Republicans were actually simultaneously capable of fiscal conservatism and social compassion and signed up with them - I'm still getting the mailings urging me to spend $5,000 on a plate of hors' de oeuvres to support family values and the war on terror. The best use I've found for them is to paste them in the cube of one of my coworkers who spends some of his time pasting humorous little cartoon word bubbles to them with post its - you can see them (he currently has at least one up) in D1-N395 if you're interested. Joe|||I suppose I'll have to consider that. That's rough. I was irritated enough last night. Not sure if I could handle the Bush family in my mailbox.