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Tuesday
Morning Coming Down
Ruminations
on Ed Schrock, Virginia's torrential rains and the
Republican Party convention in New York.
It
is a glum and overcast Tuesday morning here in
Meadows of Dan. It is early.
Real early. I
am reading e-mails and press reports from around the
state. A few
of the regular crazies have checked in — folks who
generally love or hate this column. A piece I did
the other day on Jerry Falwell’s law school has a
few of them frothed up this morning.
I
can actually visualize that big vein popping out
just a shade off-center of some of the writers’
foreheads. Hey,
it takes real writing skill to paint that picture.
The folks I hear from are skilled writers.
The
weather and the Republican Convention and Ed Schrock
are pretty much dominating the state news
this morning. Richmond,
and a lot of small communities in central Virginia,
have practically washed away during the night. A foot of rainfall in just a few hours will
do that — or make you think it’s going to do it. In
Richmond,
the consequences were tragic, a story still
unfolding at this writing.
Rep.
Ed Schrock,
R-2nd, a good man, is quitting his race for
re-election. Sure,
I’ve had a few breathless e-mails over the past few
days in that regard. But I think about that like I think about
this: When I
was a kid we had "white" and
"colored." Now
that we’ve become civilized, we have "gay"
and "straight."
Unless
you’re the victim, it is not quite as pronounced
as the system of
apartheid we had that history knows as "Jim
Crow," but make no mistake — it is the same
shameful, disgraceful,
unpardonable sort of thing.
Lynching is still lynching.
From
time to time I am gently upbraided by even some
Democrats here in Virginia
for being so (gasp!) partisan, for not playing quite
the game of footsy with the Right some of them
prefer. Be
nicer, kinder, gentler, is their advice.
But, bless their hearts, they give bum
advice.
Ask
James Baker and the folks who managed the "win"
for Bush in Florida.
Ask Rudy.
Hizzonner
took a New York
brickbat to John Kerry last night. This guy understands
that politics is a full contact sport, more akin to
hockey without the helmets than to some
hand-holding, think tank, hen club.
But even the good mayor made some incredible
reaches last night — comparing this Lilliputian to
Winston Churchill? Please.
No
wonder the mayor was laughing so much during his own
speech last night. Just
thinking about it after he’d said it, he
couldn’t keep a straight face, either.
I
could have voted for Senator John McCain — until
last night. He
gave a good speech — some of the lines were good,
even if the delivery was pleadish and whiny.
And it didn’t bother me that he took a shot
at Michael Moore, even without seeing the movie.
Hey, he’s entitled to whatever blinders he
wants to wear.
But
who would have thought that bootlicking would come
so easy to a man of McCain’s experience?
Maybe he just wants the presidency so bad
himself that he can swallow the sordid lies, the
trashing that the Bush campaign gave him in South
Carolina last time around. Surprises me, though.
There
were a lot of photographs flashed on the big screen
behind the podium last night — hundreds of them,
mostly from good angles — famous, square-jawed
Republicans in one candid shot or another — where
else could you see Gerald Ford as Marlboro Man? —
but I didn’t notice a single one of our real
heroes of late.
Was
there even one photograph of even one of the 974
(and counting) Americans who have died in Iraq put
up on that big screen?
No? When
are we going to "out" a few of them?
When are we going to stop sneaking these
corpses home under the cover of darkness?
In
my house, the scariest moment last night was a
zoom-in close-up of one of the delegates on the
floor. The dog
jumped up and growled. The cat’s hair stood up. My wife screamed.
I just smiled. My buddy,
Tucker
Watkins, Senator George Allen’s aide de camp, was
lookin’ good.
--
September 7, 2004
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