Boston Bacchanalia, Night #4: The Warmup Acts

Thank GOD this exercise in high-octane calumny is concluded. Now the army of mop-drivers can set about cleaning up all the puke and urine and "other bodily fluid" puddles in which the FleetCenter is no doubt still awash.

Hey, they invited Wesley Clark to speak! I had forgotten he even existed, and figured they wanted to forget as well. And to think that not even a year ago so many libs taunted me that loopy tin-star was guaranteed to be the next President of the United States. Hint: if you people think I’m ever going to let you hear the end of that one, you have a whooooole lotta thinks coming.

Well, what did the XFL of politics have to say? Has he been hanging around with his best bud, Michael Moore, or has Jimmy Carter been freezing him out? Has he exacted revenge upon Brit Hume for destroying his campaign on George Bush’s behalf?

"Ashley Wilkes" started out reasonably enough.

Our freedoms were won in war, and protected by generation after generation of selfless service and sacrifice of men and women in uniform. From Bunker Hill to Bastogne, from the frozen hills of Korea to the jungles of Vietnam, from Kabul to Baghdad, American men and women in uniform have served with honor.

Okay so far.

American men and women in uniform have served with honor. They've given us so much; they've asked for so little. Tonight, please give them a round of applause. Honor them, our veterans, our families. Give them a round of applause. We love our men and women in uniform. They have given so much. I want all America to see our party and how we respect the men and women who serve.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that this passage is a bit repetitive. That’s because the delegates weren’t responding. They were sitting on their hands, being honest about how they really feel about the military, and Clark had to practically browbeat them into even a feigned pop.

Soon, though, Dr. Strangelove started having combat flashbacks.

I've heard the thump of enemy mortars. I've seen the tracers fly. Bled on the battlefield. Recovered in hospitals. Received and obeyed orders. Sent men and women into battle. Awarded medals, comforted families, attended funerals.

And completely lost his grip on not spewing sentence fragments willy-nilly. Whether before or after he lost his grip on reality isn’t known, as evinced by his deviation from his prepared text to gratuitously claim that John Kerry has experience the same things. In a theatre during a war movie once for most of them, perhaps.

Then his medication really started to wear off quickly, like "male enhancement" when Hillary Clinton walks into the room.

We saluted this flag. We fought for this flag! And we've seen brave men buried under this flag. This flag is ours! And nobody will take it away from us!

Funny, isn’t claiming partisan ownership of the flag something they disingenuously accuse Republicans of doing? Maybe they want sole custody of it so that they can burn it in peace, perhaps by ripping it into strips, rolling them up, and smoking them.

One of Clark’s biggest applause lines was this one:

The safety of our country demands making more friends and fewer enemies.

Awfully hard to see how we "made" enemies like Abu Zarqawi, Kim Jong Il, Iran's mullahs, Bashar Assad, al Qaeda, and the "insurgents," other perhaps than our refusal to become LIKE them. On the other hand, is this perhaps a Fruedian admission on Clark's part that France and Germany aren't our friends? That isn't our fault, either, and for quite similar reasons.

Never let it be said that Kerry’s seditious, pro-Hanoi activities after his contrivedly truncated tour of duty wasn’t mentioned at this convention:

Kerry fought a war and I respected him for that. He came home to fight for peace and I respect him for that, too.

The descent into madness became a plummet.

Great Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman who turned back the tide of fascism to World War II. Great Democrats like John Kennedy, who stood firm and steered us safely through the Cuban Missile Crisis. And great Democrats like Bill Clinton, who confronted ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, and with diplomacy — backed by force — brought peace to a shattered land.

Notably missing from that "great Democrat" list was Lyndon Johnson, who lost Southeast Asia, and Jimmy Carter, who lost Iran, Afghanistan, and (nearly) all of Central America. But utterly appalling was the citation of the rape of Serbia over Kosovo, which was precisely what libs dishonestly condemn Operation Iraqi Freedom as being: an "elective" war, for Clinton’s own political gain, based upon blatant falsehoods, that deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. Actually, Kosovo was worse, since the primary beneficiary of our toothless aggression was a Muslim narcoterrorist group (the Kosovo Liberation Army).

Joe Lieberman spoke, too. Kind of like the last twitch of rigor mortis from the long-dead Truman/JFK/Scoop Jackson wing of the party that sincerely believed that partisanism should stop at the water’s edge. He actually identified the enemy not just as "terrorists" but Islamists, and even went so far as to equate them to "Nazis and Communists," which earned him a stony silence, since all the delegates know that Republicans are Nazis, and how dare this Bush-collaborator insult their comrades in arms like that!

Then he declared:

We must support our brave troops; they are the new greatest generation, they have liberated Afghanistan and Iraq from murderous tyrannies, and they are fighting tonight in both of those nations to defeat terrorists and allow democratic governments to grow there.

The delegates just stared back with muted hostility.

I know that Senator Lieberman, just like John McCain, has firmly and unequivocally denied that he will ever switch parties. But you have to wonder about the Connecticut Democrat, who is a rarity in that party anymore, a good, decent, and honorable man. He really did seem to be addressing the wrong convention.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke. Her delivery was awful, her content forgettable. Maybe it’s because every time I see her she’s wearing tops with plunging necklines showing a generous amount of wrinkled cleavage. Given the contrast to her stretched-taut face, I’m always reminded of Gloria Swanson. I mean, I know she’s from San Francisco, but for heaven’s sake, she’s an old lady. And old ladies should not be publicly displaying their sagging funbags without the excuse of senile dementia or silicone leakage. Which would probably segue back to the content of her speech, if I could remember what it was.

Perhaps there was no more appropriate saleslady for the presumptive Kerry foreign policy pitch than Bill Clinton’s little foreign ministerial troll, Aunt Madeleine, who declared, "John Kerry will lead America and its allies to defeat and destroy terrorist groups around the world." Well maybe she missed it, but George W. Bush is already doing that. Guess this means Lurch and Opie can take the next few months off instead, huh?