From the Proceedings of the White Christian Party

Succumbing to pressures that exist only in my own mind, I tuned in to the proceedings of the White Christian Party in Tampa, Florida (with its delayed start because of the Jewish himacane which had passed through on Monday as some sort of Old Testament tocsin aimed at Southern smarm).  I watched the convention as narrated by MSNBC since the most enjoyment, for me, comes from the cognitive dissonance set up by (a) seeing and hearing something with your own senses as juxtaposed to (b) the immediate, contradictory spin put on what you just saw by the liberal talking heads, such as Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell.  This makes it fun, almost.  It's like a Spanish translation scene from Woody Allen's "Bananas."

The speeches were pretty dreadful, of course.  Mike Huckabee, an Evangelical like President Obama is an "Evangelical," bent over backwards to find common ground with LDS'er Mitt Romney and Papist Paul Ryan (if all of this sounds like a burning cross meeting in Macon, Georgia, circa 1925, well...).  The White Christians know they're up against it, and they've come out swinging.  They had their Show Negro, Condoleeza Rice, in a prominent role, as if to defuse the very obvious racist innuendo aimed at Obama all night long.  Former Secretary of Something Rice was praised to the sky by the liberal commentators, especially Matthews, because, well, she's black.  I chalk it up to Bush Nostalgia, something I thought could never happen.

On the other hand, Matthews, Maddow and O'Donnell, following a corporate script, couldn't find enough bad things to say about Paul Ryan.  The funniest criticism was that Ryan gave, in essence, a "stump speech."  Full of campaign phrases, such as "we can do this."  Well....yeah.  As opposed to, what?, a lecture with a large blackboard, PowerPoint, and differential equations squiggling from the end of Ryan's chalk?  One gets confused as to the nature of the criticism or what sort of game the commentators think they're playing, sometimes.

Actually, Ryan was pretty effective.  I had seen him speak extemporaneously on C-SPAN in the House, and he seemed like a dim bulb trying to live up to an unearned reputation as a smart, "intellectual" wit.  I'm sure that this impression was accurate.  However, when he memorized a speech written by others (Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist, gave their names), he did a good job delivering the words.  It made him look smart and sincere, no small task for this guy.  Thus, he has essentially the same talent as Barack Obama himself, that of projecting qualities which he doesn't really have through the medium of television to the 80 to 90% of the voting American populace who react only to these images.

Thus, what the liberal panel should have been talking about was Romney's "wisdom" in choosing such a mannequin (with his pretty, blonde, Catholic wife, and their adorable little brood of pretty, Catholic children) to tour the country with him.  Because Ryan, when given a script, can get the message across that Obama (his dusky doppelganger) wasted his first term by screwing around for a full year on a mess of a health care overhaul that no one likes, that forces American commoners to buy lousy coverage from private industry, and which can be portrayed (although inaccurately, but that doesn't matter) as negatively affecting Medicare.

Which is exactly what the Cigar Store Mormon needs, because Mitt himself is so uninspiring, conflicted, amorphous, and did I mention he was Mormon?  Which is a major strike against him with the White Christian Party, because Mormons believe in a fantastic variation on the mythology believed in passionately by the White Evangelicals.  The Republican factions do remind me often of the old Communist internecine factionalism involving Bolsheviks, Trotskyites and Mensheviks, with their fussy, doctrinaire little quibbles in the middle of a totally unworkable ethos. The quibbles, of course, providing sufficient cause to shoot each other.  It never occurs to the White Christian Party that with regard to Catholics, or Mormons, or Holy Rollers, that everything all of you believe is complete and utter nonsense so what the hell is the difference?

Just an existential take on political discourse.  Anyway, I'm hooked.  I just can't wait for the Tax Haven Meister himself tonight!