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• Wednesday, September 3, 2008 08:47 AM

  Not about issues

  Truly bizarre was Day 2 of the GOP Convention, with not one substantive issue raised in any detail. Even national security -- "keeping Americans safe" as the Republicans like to put it -- was mainly about over-the-top, emotion-triggering depictions of military heroism. We know our service members are devoted, brave, and steadfast, but where was the connection between the story of a fallen warrior and the GOP plan for the next four years? Missing in action. Instead we got patriotic cliches, Fred Thompson bloviating platitudes, Joe Lieberman dismissing Obama as a fine young man with a future. The GOP is once again running as the war party. War will make us safe and keep us free. And, y'know what? We're WINNING in Iraq! Our troops are COMING HOME! Obama was WRONG! McCain was RIGHT! The surge worked! The most Orwellian twist, what columnist Mark Shields called the evening's "cognitive dissonance," was all the speakers talking about draining the "swamp" of Washington, rooting out "corruption" and "influence-peddling" and ending the "bitter divisions" of partisan politics -- as if there had not been a Bush administration, with its rogues gallery of criminals, possibly the most corrupt administration in modern presidential history. And now McCain's campaign manager says this race is "not about issues." Really? I'd check with the 47 million Americans without health coverage first. Or those military families facing their fourth and fifth deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan. The GOP has no program; it simply is determined to stay in power.

  —mhmllr Read mhmllr's other letters
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