The Republican National Convention: "We're Americans, You're Not" - Civil Discourse? Fuggetaboutit!

Partisan - as defined by Merriam Webster's -- is a familiar term to anyone with a fifth-grade education: "a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; esp: one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance."

While Wednesday night's RNC hewed to this usage, it also veered into the territory of the more archaic second definition: "a member of a body of detached light troops making forays and harassing an enemy." Such was the jingoism displayed. (A friend termed the evening "a Nuremberg Rally.")

At the week's outset, we were told that Gustav necessitated a convention shorn of its politics. Well, someone forgot to notify the speakers of such changes to the gameplan. On Tuesday night, Pres. Bush was beamed via satellite, using the full weight of his executive office (literally and figuratively) to take potshots against "The Angry Left." Wednesday night saw speeches by the Governors Four --- Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani, capped by the V.P. nominee Sarah Palin - who it seems, has spent the last five days in a safehouse.

To my ears it seemed that Bush speechwriter Mike Scully had his fingerprints on each and every speech of the evening -- particularly when it came to any of the predatory phrasing liberally sprinkled throughout the texts of Wednesday's speakers. While Gov. Huckabee has otherwise shown dignity and class throughout the election cycle (I might not share his creationist views, but he seems to value civil discourse) some of his message ("tackier than a costume change at a Madonna concert"?!?) seemed to be out of character. When has he otherwise played the zero-sum game?

If the last RNC in '04 had the makings of a drinking game for each time "9/11" was uttered, "Putting Country First" is this year's call to arms -- and shot glasses. So why was Obama's work as a community organizer ridiculed by not one, but three of the speakers? Surely someone who attempts to rebuild infrastructure and mentor the next generation without political benefit is to be lauded. If he had been employed by a Church (or a "faith-based organization) doing the same social service outreach, how then might the same work be derided?

It appears that the RNC of 2008 has ideologically returned to its Grover Norquist roots, wanting to make government so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub. Only that thought seems to be at odds with its actions. During the last eight years the party of Law and Order -- hat tip to Fred Thompson -- has shredded the Constitution, and increased its reach into our personal lives: Less Law, More Order. The Democratic Party might be argued as the party of the "Nanny State," but it's the Republican Party -- sorry Mitt -- that has proven itself in lockstep with being the party of "Big Brother" (he said it, I'm just re-directing). But don't take my word -- read up on FISA and the Military Commissions Act.

So while Sen. Joe Lieberman asked that Independents and Democrats join in and vote for his good friend John McCain on Tuesday night, Mitt Romney decided to return to themes of both culture and class war beginning with: "Liberals don't have a clue." And this theme was reverberated with relish, first with "Mayor of the World" Giuliani and that self-professed pit-bull with lipstick, VP nom Sarah Palin.

And what of Gov. Palin's remarks? Slate's Tim Noah had it right Wednesday afternoon, predicting that her speech would be acclaimed. Again, I suspect that Scully had everything to do with crafting Palin's rhetoric. Here's a choice nugget from the entire text. It sums up the evening's strategy:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

Trouble is, that's the nature of the political beast. Here's Peggy Noonan, after earlier in the day praising Gov. Palin in print as transformative: [Original link scrubbed by the WSJ.]

Here's her somewhat tortured mea culpa.

Should we actually turn our attention to the substance of her remarks, we'd find that "independent" Alaska is basically a state subsisting on Federal welfare. Tim Noah of Slate again, on how Alaska is a socialist's paradise receiving $1.84 for every dollar it pays into the U.S. Treasury, getting about $14,000 per citizen from the federal government, more than any other state.

McCain acceptance will benefit from the same low expectations that Palin engendered. I actually don't think he'll surpass these. Meanwhile...

In a bit of counterprogramming, Keith Olbermann nemesis Bill O'Reilly has an interview with Sen. Obama scheduled for 8pm, an hour before McCain strides across the podium. The segment was taped earlier today in Dover, PA and Fox has leaked some of Obama's statements, including the concession that the surge has "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams." But what about going into Iraq on false pretenses to begin with? Let's try and break through Karl Rove's "reality-based" community; shall we?