RNC Convention Comment Thread.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-09-04 12:04pm

irishmick79 wrote: Isn't it interesting, how in the whole course of wanking to McCain's biography, the Republicans don't really mention his senate record at all? It's like the biography just stops after he marries Cindy almost, and they go straight into the rhetoric about what a great decision maker and principled leader he is.

Let me guess, they didn't bother mentioning the rather uncomfortable fact that McCain filed for his marriage certificate to Cindy while he was still legally married to his former wife at all, did they?

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2008-09-04 12:23pm

General Zod wrote:
irishmick79 wrote: Isn't it interesting, how in the whole course of wanking to McCain's biography, the Republicans don't really mention his senate record at all? It's like the biography just stops after he marries Cindy almost, and they go straight into the rhetoric about what a great decision maker and principled leader he is.
Let me guess, they didn't bother mentioning the rather uncomfortable fact that McCain filed for his marriage certificate to Cindy while he was still legally married to his former wife at all, did they?

no, they tend to overlook that point.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-09-04 01:53pm

I honestly couldn't believe what I heard. If you could sum up everything wrong with politics in a single person and speech, then Palin's work succeeds admirably. I can't stand American grandstanding even from the Dems, but at least Obama knows what he's talking about and has a head on his shoulders. Palin and her sycophants are simply despicable liars.

This type of thing, more than anything else, makes me lose hope for the species. Obama had better win.

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2008-09-04 01:58pm

Jesus Christ, I know attacking your opponent is an effective way of scaring people to vote for you but the GOP in this convention seems to have taken that strategy and driven it off the fucking cliff. Well, they know how to do that best so I suppose they might as well make sure they remain undefeated champions at negative campaigning.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-09-04 02:41pm

I especially love the "Leader not an Organizer" line. Yes, 8 years have Bush have surely convinced America that what it needs is continued quasi-dictatorship from the top down instead of a republic.

In all honesty, while the bombast on both sides is aggrivating, it's the only way to keep up. Without the massive dambuster rallies of the Obama camp he wouldn't have been able to ever vault over Hillary and Edwards, let alone to swamp the Media's Darling McCain into the prized seat of attention. McCain was practically dragged out of an early grave by the media this cycle, and he's made his career by being a good friend to the press. His willingness to talk candidly is what saved him from burning down in the Keating scandal and kept the Republicans from cannibalizing him for a combination of moderate votes and embarassing womanizing backstory.

It's an ever increasing ante in terms of popularity that you face here, and Europe and other countries aren't immune to it either, especially with the reaction they give Obama when he shows up. Part of that is hoping to see Big Dangerous America turn itself into something that's less antagonistic to world peace, but it's also because he knows how to whip up a crowd. I'd say that the Republicans are the ones who drove this trend with their Style over Substance Cult of Reagan and the nuremburg rallies they use prop up the Big Tent. It also benefits their wedge politics, since it helps these groups feel pressure to comply while also making them seem like the majority opinion. Democrats doing it too does increase the grandstanding to unprecedented levels, but it'll help both sides feel like they've got a movement at their back.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-09-04 03:24pm

I was watching Matt Frei on the BBC at the RNC (I will not attempt to say that three times fast), and he was incredulous at the blatant bullshit coming forth from the republicans. They were saying that any and all criticisms about Palin were based in sexism (and they had gone to the trouble of finding a female republican to say it, to make it seem more naturalistic, I guess), and I think Frei was so stunned that this weak response, his only response was "are you really serious?!" much like how Jeremy Paxman responded to Ann Coulter.

Speaking as an outsider looking in, the republicans seem almost, I daresay, cheesy. They're sort of like those bits in Starship Troopers and Robocop that lampoon commercialism or militarism or whatever. Then when the BBC cuts to interviews with people at some fair in Alaska or wherever, and they're still repeating the muslim thing, I just start to really hate the republican party and the large american population that's either this dumb permanently or just intellectually weak enough to be swayed.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2008-09-04 03:26pm

Ok, I didn't watch Rudy Guilliani's speech. So someone please tell me this is a photoshop:

They didn't really run scenes from 9/11 behind the podium as he was speaking, did they?

Invictus ChiKen · Post by **Invictus ChiKen** » 2008-09-04 03:33pm

When I watched it I believe they did.

9/11 has been the best thing to ever happen to the GOP and they are going to milk it for all it is worth till the whole thing has been run into the ground.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-09-04 03:46pm

It's a Photoshop, they showed no pictures of 9-11, they showed one of the post-tragedy skyline a few times at the beginning and end of the speech but the rest of it was that kind of burgandy flowing flag graphic with the McCain-*-Palin graphic on the background. Let's not make a farce of ourselves here by believing that they don't know how to work the media.

And please, don't lambast the large American population, since it's a sort of wacky No True Scotsman fallacy to say that the test for Real Americanism is republican insanity. The numbers of republicans, or people reporting as republicans, is an ever-decreasing number. Nobody I know believes that nonsense, and despite being in Illinois the suburbs are widely considered to be fairly conservative. When you have one of the major news networks and one of the major political parties engaged in the production and distribution of outright lies, it poisons the well. There's plenty of ignorant assholes, but this kind of insanity isn't restricted to the States. This is the Republican's best effort here, all their money and energy thrown into the Candidate they think they have the best chance of electing, not the one who represents their goals best, and even this blatant pandering to maintain political power even at their ideological loss is having a hard time beating a Black Kid with a Funny Muslim Name, so there's a fair number of people willing to do some pretty extrordinary stuff.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-09-04 04:32pm

I love how Frankie Boyle on Mock the Week said Palin must be the first female president, because McCain is the first presidential candidate to potentially be assassinated by a popped paper bag.

And she's apparently pro-life. Just not for bears.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-09-04 04:56pm

Covenant wrote: And please, don't lambast the large American population, since it's a sort of wacky No True Scotsman fallacy to say that the test for Real Americanism is republican insanity. The numbers of republicans, or people reporting as republicans, is an ever-decreasing number.

While that's good, they voted Bush in. Twice. And they continue to be the target audience for all this... endless bullshit. While I'm cautiously coming around to the position that Obama's the fated president, the country is still rotten to the core.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2008-09-04 05:38pm

Zuul wrote:
Covenant wrote: And please, don't lambast the large American population, since it's a sort of wacky No True Scotsman fallacy to say that the test for Real Americanism is republican insanity. The numbers of republicans, or people reporting as republicans, is an ever-decreasing number.
While that's good, they voted Bush in. Twice. And they continue to be the target audience for all this... endless bullshit. While I'm cautiously coming around to the position that Obama's the fated president, the country is still rotten to the core.

It wasn't a landslide, either time. Covenant's point still stands.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-09-04 05:46pm

Zuul wrote:
Covenant wrote: And please, don't lambast the large American population, since it's a sort of wacky No True Scotsman fallacy to say that the test for Real Americanism is republican insanity. The numbers of republicans, or people reporting as republicans, is an ever-decreasing number.
While that's good, they voted Bush in. Twice. And they continue to be the target audience for all this... endless bullshit. While I'm cautiously coming around to the position that Obama's the fated president, the country is still rotten to the core.

It's still a massive oversimplification, and for those of us who actually have to live here with these morons it shows a real lack of comprehension about the deepness of the divide between the kinds of people you're talking about and the rest of everyone. Play hardball with American politics, but do it in a way that doesn't totally miss the mark. A great number of the Republican Party's most influential members are rich plutocrats who don't believe in Secret Muslim stories or Holy Missions to conquer and convert the middle east, but are using their money and influence to keep these idiots voting against their interests to keep the wealthy rolling in money. Bush's family and Rove were lobbying McCain hard for Romney as the V.P. and he certainly represents the big money asshole more than the christian dominationist asshole.

Because of this, the reasons for voting are all wrong, but wrong for many different ways. They're the Big Tent party because they try to be all things to all assholes. But it's just ignorant to say that the specific flavor of moron you're talking is the the most common one, or that all of these people believe the same brand of stupidity.

So I do take exception to the blanket assertion that the entire country is rotten now and forever just because the uneducated masses continue to be the open sore here that they are in every country that was too short-sighted to create them. You can't instantly reach into the mind of an idiot American bigot any more than an idiot bigot from another flag, and it's draining enough to wage the war of ideology it takes to get these people to think without having to debate that the attempt itself isn't pointless. If some other country wants to open the gates to the 55 percent or so of America that doesn't agree with Jesusland, I'll be all for moving to a sane place, but it just seems too pretend that these morons outnumber the rest of us by orders of magnitude. Hell, one of the main demons of American politics is an Aussie, and holds court at the head of Castle Pandemonium that is FOX news. If you really want to look where some of the biggest blame for mobilizing, uniting, and giving a voice to what was once the extreme Right, you have more reason to look at the international money-market that Murdoch and others are apart of than at some uniquely American flaw that even the rest of us carry like the mark of Cain.

/rant

I can't defend them, and I won't defend them just to protect the piece of my ego that whines whenever someone slams the country I'm in, but unless you can seriously assert that there is a degree of uniformity among all of us here--or even amongst the entire group that voted for Bush--I can't see it as anything more than flamebait to drag the policy and politics debate off topic and just into an Anti-America roast.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-09-04 07:41pm

Lord Poe wrote:It wasn't a landslide, either time. Covenant's point still stands.

Not really...? The fact they've decided elections (at least somewhat democratically) justifies precisely what I was talking about. Hell, if you read my first post in this thread and compare it to what Covenant just said, they don't even contradict! I'm not even sure how it's meant to be a response to what I said.

thejester · Post by **thejester** » 2008-09-04 07:52pm

Zuul wrote:
Lord Poe wrote:It wasn't a landslide, either time. Covenant's point still stands.
Not really...? The fact they've decided elections (at least somewhat democratically) justifies precisely what I was talking about. Hell, if you read my first post in this thread and compare it to what Covenant just said, they don't even contradict! I'm not even sure how it's meant to be a response to what I said.

A quarter of the American populace voted for him. You can accuse 50% of being lazy dicks, but hardly pro-Republican whores.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2008-09-04 07:57pm

Fake Soldiers Used In RNC Video

It was a video that was supposed to elicit soaring patriotism and real emotions about the Pledge of Allegiance. But to do that, it used fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.

On Tuesday night, 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone, a sophomore at the St. Agnes School in St. Paul, led the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center in the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience heard her 434-word essay, “Pledging myself to the Flag of the United States of America,” an essay she’d entered in the “Wave the Stars & Stripes” essay contest and won. The RNC turned that essay into a three and a half minute video, a visually stirring montage rolling over Victoria’s words about sharing the Pledge with Americans who have stood at important moments in history.

There’s the Continental Congress…A real WWII vet…Photos of workers at Ground Zero. A close-up of a folded flag presented to a grieving widow at a military funeral… profiles of soldiers swelling with pride in slo-motion.

But CBS News found that the footage of the ‘funeral’ and soldiers is what is called ‘stock’ footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.

The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee.

One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, Ill. also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention.

A veteran’s advocate said that with soldiers still deployed and in harm’s way, there is an obligation not to sugar coat reality.

“What it does reveal is a serious lack of understanding and a lack of personal connection to the military,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Rieckhoff, who is at the convention with a contingent of veterans added that a video tribute to Medal of Honor winner Michael Monsoor, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq, shown on Tuesday night, used combat video that appeared to him and several other veterans of the Iraq war to have been staged.

After a Web search of videos played at the Democratic National Convention last week, CBS News found no obvious use of stock footage.

The RNC did not respond to CBS News’ request for a comment.

Though I was just decrying posts that add nothing of substance to the discussion, I have no comment on this at this time. This made me so mad that I now have a headache.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-09-04 08:06pm

thejester wrote:
Zuul wrote:
Lord Poe wrote:It wasn't a landslide, either time. Covenant's point still stands.
Not really...? The fact they've decided elections (at least somewhat democratically) justifies precisely what I was talking about. Hell, if you read my first post in this thread and compare it to what Covenant just said, they don't even contradict! I'm not even sure how it's meant to be a response to what I said.
A quarter of the American populace voted for him. You can accuse 50% of being lazy dicks, but hardly pro-Republican whores.

People who didn't vote should be considered irrelevant either way. There is no reason to assume that they necessarily would have voted any differently than those who actually bothered to get off their asses and do it.

As for the argument that "only" 53% of the voters chose Bush in 2004, I think that's missing the point. In any reasonable scenario, the figure should have been more like 20%, 30% at most. Especially after Bush's horrendous first term in office. It's utterly insane that more than half the voters picked him with his record. The man is the most incompetent, venal, and even lazy president in living memory. And look at the guy he was running against: he's not much of a liberal himself. An actual liberal candidate in America would be lucky to get 20% of the vote.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2008-09-04 10:32pm

You know. You think you're over it. It's been seven years. You think the memory is nicely dead and buried, and seeing it all again won't bring back that horrorshow in your head, wondering how many people you knew who were in there, wondering if your father was there.

And then the fucking GOP just has to pull it all out again for their wankfest.

Disgraceful. Of course, not fucking one of their supporters will care or raise a stink about it. To them, it's just images to wrap around themselves while screaming for their desires ends. Truest reminder that there are sociopaths in political power, that.

Post by **Cairber** » 2008-09-04 10:56pm

Wow, I know people have said McCain is bad at reading the teleprompter, but this is ridiculous. He said something about Palin working with her hands and nose...wtf does that mean? And he keeps saying "from" in place of "for" and "for" in place of "from".

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-09-04 10:58pm

And here we are with his P.O.W. experience again.

I know they reconfigured the arena to stage the "town meeting" style address he's so comfortable with. But really, it boggles the mind that they didn't go on to erect a 4x6x7 bamboo cage for him to speak from.

Post by **Cairber** » 2008-09-04 10:59pm

Did you see the smile he had on his face when he said he had the scars to prove his experience and Obama did not. creepy.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2008-09-04 10:59pm

He used 'my friends' again.
Time for another shot of Beam.

Post by **Cairber** » 2008-09-04 11:00pm

Glocksman wrote:He used 'my friends' again.
Time for another shot of Beam.

We are doing wine sips to "my friends" "maverick" and POW references. Had to stop at two glasses though...

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-09-04 11:07pm

Here's the dozy plattitudes moment.

This is starting to remind me of a speech by John Gill.

Oh, looks like it's over. Was too busy putting my son to bed to really sit through what sounded like a rather empty sermon for the snatches of it I caught. I suppose the online video will be available in a couple of hours for a more comprehensive review.

Post by **Cairber** » 2008-09-04 11:08pm

Can anyone tell me what the house was in the backdrop? He was in front of that house for most of the speech (well, you saw the green of the lawn on TV). That seems like a strange choice of backdrop considering the ridicule he has received over the housing thing.