September 8, 2008

Conventional Thinking

OK, the Olympics and both political conventions are over, and I’m sitting here in my own little sensory vacuum. There is not a lot left to watch on TV, apart from halfhearted telecasts of the Detroit Tigers stumbling their way toward the end of their season and reruns of Family Guy. So now I have a little time to catch my breath and reflect on what’s happened in the last few weeks.

Think about it. First came the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, where the world watched as Michael Phelps emerged as the greatest Olympian of all time, and China demonstrated her centuries-old mastery of computer-generated fireworks.

Then the Democrats mounted the most extravagant nomination spectacle ever seen in American politics. On the last night of the convention, more than 80,000 people jammed Denver’s Invesco Field at Mile High, and a record audience of more than 40 million people watched on television, as the first African-American candidate for the presidency of the United States gave an articulate and powerful acceptance speech.

Now, the great humorist Will Rogers once said, “I am a member of no organized political party. I am a member of the Democratic Party.” For most of my adult (and politically progressive) life I have been in reluctant agreement with old Will. I think the problem is that Democrats tend to hold candlelight vigils for peace and folk festivals for tolerance, while Republicans launch coordinated media assaults against radical anti-American concepts like – well, peace and tolerance.

So I was pretty impressed at the scale and execution of the Democratic National Convention. The speakers were, for Democrats, out there playing hard ball. Every one of them carefully expressed deep respect for John McCain’s military service to his country, and then vigorously attacked his complicity with the Bush Administration. The most disparaging comment I heard all week came from vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden, who said in reference to McCain’s record of voting more than 90 percent in favor of Bush’s policies, “. . . that’s not a ‘maverick’ – that’s a sidekick!”

Bam! Pow! Zowee!

And then the Republicans took the stage.

You know, Republicans really are good at propaganda. Their talking points march through the media in synchronized lock-step, drummed into the right-wing faithful with absolute precision by disciplined political operatives like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and thousands of other surrogates. And they are effective. One recent study indicated a majority of people who watch Fox News actually believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

They are also pretty ruthless. In a masterpiece of irony, Bill O’Reilly, one of the most vehement slingers of right-wing propaganda of all time, has taken to calling any statement that does not agree with his ideas “hate speech.” I know – last year in Philadelphia I had the personal honor of having Bill tell me, along with a roomful of other writers at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists conference, that we were all a bunch of Nazis.

So I guess I should not have been all that surprised that the tone of the Republicans was a little different than that of the Democrats. Speaker after speaker smirked and snickered at Sen. Obama, his family and everything he stands for, particularly targeting his work as a community organizer and civil rights lawyer during his first few years after graduating from Harvard Law School. Rudy Giuliani was nearly overcome with the hilarity of it all, choking with laughter at the stupidity of anyone who would waste his time working to help disadvantaged urban people.

You know, a little earlier in this election season, I had an idea that this lap around the track might be more civil than what we’ve seen in the past. After all, in the 2000 presidential primaries, John McCain was savaged by the Karl Rove political disinformation meat grinder. It seemed only logical that Sen. McCain would remember how it felt and take a little bit different approach. I would never have predicted that McCain would hire Rove protégés to orchestrate this campaign.

Yeah. Kumbaya.

Oh well, at least we only have a few weeks to wait until the Red Wings are back.

Copyright ©2008 Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group.

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