These Bastards guide to HurriMcCain 08: Day 1

Crisi-tunity

Ahh today was going to be such a good day for Republicans. They were going to have to acknowledge George Bush and Dick Cheney as active members of their party and then spend three days pretending it never happened. There was even the chance that a crowd would chant "4 more years" at them, all but cutting together an ad for Democrats. But alas, Hurricane Gustav is happening. So they've pretty much scuttled the first day of the convention under the belief that a rockin' party that is celebrating the worst President in modern history and his policies doesn't endear them to the American public while a massive hurricane could potentially destroy large chunks of the gulf coast.

Cheney is free to do what he normally does: wander the Adirondacks, stalking and killing stray cattle. Bushie can't be there because he's apparently needed at hurricane HQ, to make pillow forts and tell spooky ghost stories to Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour as they sleep over. All part of the Republicans plan to not look like they are actively neglectful and complicit in the destruction of a major American city.....y'know like they did for Katrina. Oh New Orleans, if only they cared about you in non-election years.

So the convention is stripped to the bare minimum today, just the bog standard blood rituals and sacrifice that give the Republican party its power...and all the boring party stuff needed to get McCain public matching funds and his nomination as Republican candidate. Oh they'll try to milk the hurricane to their advantage, McCain has already doddered around the relief zone distracting relief workers and law enforcement that are tasked to handle security and deal with and be part of his photo ops instead of handling pre-storm emergency planning.

They also hope to use it as a platform to try and brand Republicans as rising above partisanship and showing competent leadership. After the last eight years, you couldn't do that with the competant handling five hurricanes, an earthquake, and a plague of Islamic locusts. It's called making lemons into lemonade, so they'll try their best. Or taking a jug of warm piss, drinking it, and pretending it's delicious lemonade. Ammonia stinking lemonade.

Probably just should have gone with subdued speeches and pageantry, I doubt canceling one or two days of a convention is going to net you much in the way of positive opinion. Not that holding one and watching a bunch of angry southerners yell about Obama being a celebrity who wants to surrender and pretending that Sarah Palin has some sort of record of achievement probably wasn't going to do it either.

If the hurricane is destructive enough he's planning on holding his acceptance speech from some devastated area, where he'll wander around some knocked over general store musing if we can risk a Barack Obama presidency. Then he'll hear a groan, run over to a collapsed beam, find a kid, pull him out to safety, cradle him, weep, and then scream out "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" as an overhead shot zooms out on the destroyed town, McCain holding the body in his arms as the tagline "Putting America First" is superimposed on the screen.

Good times.