After watching the Democratic National Convention last week, I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf.
I’m dumping all my nasty conservative convictions and signing on to the hope-and-help-are-on-the-way express. I was just charmed off my couch. Standing, I cheered the flood of optimism.
I’ve learned from all those happy, happy speakers that this presidential election is really not “about” dreary issues, like terrorism and jobs. I’ve learned that a deeper issue divides America–into the hopeful and despairing, the optimists and pessimists. (The latter being those hopelessly dour Republicans, but don’t quote me because I’m not saying anything negative about–ahem–them.) Democrats are beckoning, come out of the darkness and into the light. How refreshing.
Last week I learned that there are those who love their fellow persons and those who don’t. Those whose compassion is superior and those who would lie to justify a war in order to send young Americans to their deaths so they can lay their hands on the billions from all those war contracts. There are the honest, never-a-bad-word guys like that cuddly filmmaker Michael Moore, and those lying sneaks like … well, we can’t say who because we are so nice but you know which bums we’re talking about. Oops, did I say, “bums”? Just a slip from my mean-spirited GOP days. I meant to say, all those sillies who don’t share our chirpy outlook.
I realized that when it comes to being nice, no one does it better than Democrats. Democrats are nice. They’re really, really nice. And compassionate. They’re really, really compassionate too.
Not to say the convention was devoid of issues. There are plenty, and, gosh, it is so nice to be on the side of those who love one another right now. Elect John Kerry president and we will: take care of struggling and lonely military wives, whose lives have been made miserable by that poorly run war in Iraq; safeguard the environment; expand a contracting middle class; reduce drug prices; aid seniors; preserve Social Security; balance the budget; return honesty to government; halt the outsourcing of jobs; make our friends and enemies like us; unite the nation; end racial strife; advance women’s causes; bless us with energy independence and free us from the grip of oil producing countries that are mean to us; raise the minimum wage while creating “real jobs”; end poverty; and bring us a secure peace. Anyone who doesn’t agree with doing these good things obviously wants to go to war without reason, likes keeping millions of Americans in poverty and wants to divide us. Not that we’re talking about anyone in particular.
You know the best part of all this? All these blessings won’t cost us anything more. A President John Kerry will do all this while not raising taxes for 98 percent of Americans. The 2 percent of Americans who are rich will pick up the tab. If they can pay 40 percent of the taxes, there’s no reason that they can’t pay 50 or 75 percent. Why not make it 100 percent? Wow, why didn’t I think of that?
Some might describe this convention as a vacuous display of sentimentality. Or the “Oprahization” of politics. That would be wrong. Kerry is sincere when he talks about how character matters in a president; that a president who lies doesn’t deserve to occupy the office. So are all my fellow Democrats.
He means it when he says he wants to increase the size of the military, that he’s expert at waging war. He’s certainly not evoking his Vietnam War record for show, or trotting out all those veterans for some cynical purpose. His appeals to old-fashioned fundamental principles and family values are for real. You can believe it when he will battle the nattering nabobs of negativism. Wait, didn’t the disgraced Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew say that when he was fighting his own battle against negativism?
More Top Picks Planter Boxe
Hey. This sounds like a GOP convention! A presidential candidate who flashes a military salute and says “Reporting for duty” to the howls of delegate delight. A candidate who proclaims his “faith” and honors the American flag. A candidate who sounds more to the right on his principle issue than his conservative opponent? Did I black out and wake up at the Republican convention? I didn’t switch sides so I could stay in the same place.
What should I do now? Help, get me outta here.
———-
E-mail: [email protected]