Yesterday, I said that watching Heroes felt like the networks made a show just for me. And apparently that worked out so well that they decided to do the same thing for my dad.
Watching last night’s convention was akin to being cornered at a family reunion while my 12-year-old cousin retold me the plot of Hostel. It was hours upon hours of Republicans wildly applauding terrible stories of beating, torture implements, and bodily functions, all the while ignoring the fact that if someone put those same stories into a movie they would rally to ban it as filth. Probably led by last night’s keynote speaker, Joe Lieberman.
(Editor’s note: I just mistyped “Hoe Lieberman” and was tempted to leave it, but that kind of cheap pun is beneath both of us. But I digress.)
So it took hours and multiple speakers to find out that John McCain’s primary qualifications are that he can take a beating, keep his mouth shut and do his time like a champ. Which does make him qualified… to be a low-level soldier for the Buonanno Crew. Throw in the philandering and the shitty taste in women, and Joey Bananas would welcome John “Not The Face!” McCain into Their Thing.
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I tuned in just in time to see Laura Bush take the stage to introduce the President, and Jesus Christ: If the women of the Democratic party like to chase the Botox dragon, clearly Laura is a Republican, and therefore has had a respectable, Republican facelift. Or nine. Her eyes were dragged so tightly back that, had McCain actually been there, he’d have gone fetal and recited his name, rank and serial number. Between the facelift eyes and her slow Texas drawl, watching her speak was like witnessing a rolling stroke.
I give her credit: it took her all of three minutes and two talking points before she started defending faith-based initiatives. Which is fine, but disheartening when you consider there’s two more days of this shit to suffer through. Between Laura and tomorrow’s impending speech by Sarah Palin, the convention of the Grand Old Party is dangerously close to becoming a lipstick party in Jesus’s basement.
She brought up the President, and it was just more of the same: John was a POW, John suffered for this country… the only moderately new line about McCain he spit out was, “John has a protector’s heart,” and that was only interesting because it contrasted so well not only with Dick Cheney’s Terminator heart, but also with the virgin’s heart he keeps in a jar in his desk.
All in all, the President’s speech was pretty innocuous (I think. I went out for a cigarette sometime in the middle)… until he tried a joke. “John’s not afraid to tell you when he disagrees with you,” the President said, “Believe me: I know.” Even putting aside the generally crappy nature of that gag, he stumbled on the setup and fucked the timing on the punchline. George Bush couldn’t deliver a joke in a fucking armored car.
But I laughed anyway. Not because of the joke, but because somehow the leader of the free world has been reduced to phoning in shitty Bruce Vilanch material for an eight-minute set, when even the greenest opening act in comedy gets fifteen minutes. But considering the President’s own A material consists of naming you after a form of feces and sniggering, the short set was probably a blessing.
The beer started to get on top of me after that; there was a video retrospective of Ronald Reagan, notable only for the line “Ronald Reagan never forgot who he was”, which gave hack morning DJs across America half-stocks. And then there was Fred Thompson, who immediately got back on message with the most detailed and lurid descriptions of the night of McCain’s treatment as a prisoner of war.
Expect more of it. Welcome to Genevacon. Enjoy it; it’s the first time we’ve had one in this country for a while.
[tags]Republican National Convention, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Laura Bush, George W. Bush, Fred Thompson, Joe Lieberman, GOP, political humor, dark humor, satire[/tags]
