Friday, September 5, 2008

Conventional honor role?

Grumpy post mortem: 

McCain's new source of alternative energy:  Sarah Palin.

Most expensive outfit for a single evening: According to Vanity Fair,  Cindy McCain's  Oscar de la Renta dress, 3-carat diamond earrings and other fixings were worth nearly $400,000. (That  should end the talk of the memory loss about the number of their  houses.)

Worst color backdrop:  That awful pale green that was was so criticized  after McCain's New Orleans speech. One call to Sherwin-Williams would have helped enormously .

Most criticized speech by conservative analysts:  McCain's acceptance speech, which rambled, was flat and and filled with the boilerplate of GOP conventions long past. They also have to do something about that mechanical grin. 

Dominant convention mood:  Hawkishness and the powerful undertow of Christian  Right  subplots. 

Worst slip of the tongue: Tom Ridge's reference to "John Bush" - which he mercifully corrected.

Most peripatetic GOP analyst:  Karl Rove, the never-say-die political  advisor/crystal gazer  who was born again, and again, and again...But even Nostradamus had his bad days.  

Most manic major speaker:   Rudy Giuliani. I hope they didn't pay him for his warmup act.   

Most abused  endeavor, according to the headliners: Community organizing. 

Best line about the convention  by a hometown Democrat:  "Jesus was a community organizer.
Pilate was a mayor."

Most ignored Republicans:  George Bush and Dick Cheney.  It's almost enough to offer sympathy to Bush in exile.   But I won't.  

Most invidious comparison:  Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.  It's possible the Republicans will wish they hadn't.  

M0st overdone word that I hope never to hear again:  Maverick.  (Followed closely by "reform".)

Most ignored issues:  failed home mortgages, rising unemployment, the U.S. financial industry, tens of millions of uninsured, the overwhelming federal budget deficits that would grow worse under more tax cuts, crippling health care costs.  (If that's whining, Phil Gramm, make the most of it.) 

Most unspoken figure:  $27 million in federal earmarks to Wasilla while Palin was mayor of her little town..


Strangest sexist reference to Palin by a delegate:  A badge that said "Hottest VP."

Best post-convention news:  Everybody went home.    Or wherever. 



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Worst Slip of the tongue when they referred to Sarah Palin as Sarah Pawlenty.

They showed the Walter Reed Junior High School instead of Walter Reed Hospital in their background video. Be careful when you google.

Mary

Anonymous said...

Best line, Ted Strickland on the Presidents Bush: "George Herbert Walker Bush was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple; W was born on third base and stole second."--See Sept. 8th NewYorker.--Mark

Anonymous said...

Haw-haw! "Jesus was a community organizer." I am so stealing that line!