Wednesday: Pulling Back The Curtain

I. No Ticket

I was really looking forward to the Miller/Cheney late-night horror show double feature last night. It’s hard to beat two for the price of one. But as much as I wanted to see the Vice President — I wonder when Dick changed the family name from Chaney to Cheney? — up close to count how many bats would fly out of his mouth during the speech, I was not in the hall, owing to some michegoss with our organizations’ credentials; and when I tried to wander insid without the proper badge, I was questioned by Secret Service.

“What organization are you with?” asked the man with the buzz cut and earpiece.

“LA Weekly,” I said.

[…]

“Village Voice Media,” I then offered.

“Uh-huh,” he said, staring me down, hoping my face would give away a contradiction or other valuable national security information.

“And this here’s my homie with Harper’s,” I said, jovially pointing at Luke, a friend from that magazine.

[…]

“This whole thing with the colors is complicated,” I added somewhat nervously. “We’re sharing credentials, and so I guess I’m not going in.”

[…]

“Everyone’s trying to get the right beads hanging around their neck, you know?” I added, smiling now to conceal my anxiety at being kicked of the Garden altogether. “It’s like goddamn Mardi Gras!”

I wanted to add “except without the titty,” but caught myself just in time.

The guy left us alone after a few more minutes. But I did notice we were tailed for a while thereafter. Maybe even by a chain of radio-networked security people — although this may have been my imagination, I swear there were eyes on me after that, and I kept wondering if all the earpieces were broadcasting an APB to watch for a guy looking especially suspicious in sandals and a cowboy shirt. Because what kind of weirdo, really, would wear sandals and a cowboy shirt to the RNC?

II. Spook Show

So Luke and I repaired to the leather club chairs in the Barney’s boutique and Completely Bare spa at the back of the Farley Building across from Madison Square Garden. We had a half dozen of those little keg-shaped Heinekens, gathered from the Bell South media hospitality lounge in the basement, and drank them in good cheer with an agent from Immigration and Customs who said he’s not going to vote because “they’re all the same, these politicians,” and waved his hand at the TV as the speeches got started.

It was at that moment that the house lights dimmed and the red-gelled footlights turned to catch Zell Miller, rising out of the stage with his arms and cape outstretched, surrounded by fog and cackling to the D minor opening bars of the Tocatta and Fugue.

I’m not going to analyze the speeches, other than to say that Wednesday night was when the country got a direct glimpse into the dark heart of the GOP — beneath the rotting ribcage, that the heart beats at all is a testament to the power of bile to keep a corpse alive. There are no ideas emanating from the floor of Madison Square Garden other than to frighten people.

(For plenty of specifics, check out Marc Cooper, and even Andrew Sullivan, who described Miller’s speech as full of “bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric.”)

Last night was also a glimpse further behind the GOP curtain, another example of how Republicans try to project an image of power using smoke and mirrors and flimsy carnie theatrics. Up close, however, you can see the strings. It’s like being lured inside Dr. Mephisto’s Terror Trailer at the state fair only to realize that you paid five bucks to look at a midget in Halloween face paint from Rite-Aid talking to a wax head in a jar.

Miller’s spook show was feeble. And Dick Cheney was like a sinister, malfunctioning version of the Abe Lincoln Speaks at Disneyland, pausing between every sentence so the chip in his brain could transmit the next few words and the animatronic motor sequence from the subterranean mainframe beneath Halliburton’s corporate office.

There was a distinct vulnerability in the ferocity of the attack on Kerry and the poor performance. The response in the room may have looked lively on television, but I suspected it still wasn’t anywhere near the intensity of the floor at the DNC, and that was confirmed by Stephen Elliott, who was up close and said that the third night of the convention only reinforced his suspicion that the entire GOP is like a hologram — touch it, and your hand goes right through. “They got nothing, these guys,” he said by cellphone as the cameras on the network feed I was watching at the Barney's spa zeroed on some poor Republican delegates doing some approximation of dancing as the wrap-up R & B cover tunes kicked in. “After Obama,” Steve said as I stuffed my bag with free solar pads and bottles of gentle green tea exfoliating wash and got ready to head to the Billionaires for Bush Coronation Ball. “There was a massive optimism. The lights went on. It was about possibilities. The Republicans are about keeping the room dark. ‘Aren’t you terrified?’ they say, with flashlights below their faces. Don’t be fooled people — it’s just a flash light.”

Comments

[crasspastor]

After tonight, I wonder, no fuck it, I'm sure, all of this was one ornate good cop/bad cop routine. They're twisting people's minds into putty by introducing contradictory ideas to be held simultanously as having achieved a cult-of-personality-grade level of "veracity".

Blood thirsty yet Compassionate

Bitterly mocking yet humble

For women's uteruses yet against women's brains

For gay rights yet against gay rights

Democrat (Blood thirsty Zell) yet showcased by the RNC (what? no Pat Buchanan this time?!?)

Puritanistic yet titillating

Secular yet shamelessly mentalfundalistic

Come to think of it, every last bit of this administration that I can recall, has borne the hallmark of authoritarian caprice. It's crazy really, that this is all happening in our lifetimes. I certainly didn't expect such a befuddling beast of a mass hysterical movement to go down like this. But I guess it must.

Your friend said "they got nothing" and suspects the GOP are "like a hologram". That's the shittiest part of all. Guys, they brazenly appealed to the lowest of the low LCD with this circus. With a trick of "slight of Zell" they have stirred the hornets' nest. A new precedent has been set: One can never be a statesman and survive politics ever again.

I wonder if this is the moment where a country becomes irretrievably divided?