Month: September 2008

ST. PAUL, MN — Because of Hurricane Gustav and the rescue and
responder efforts they have publicly committed themselves to, the Republicans
gathered in Minnesota for their national nominating convention have stressed
what everybody from ticket-leader John McCain on down has called “taking off the
Republican hat” and “putting on the American hat.”

McCain’s statements, of course, were issued from spots in
the danger zone, where he, along with his vice-presidential choice, Alaska
governor Sarah Palin, went as soon as the emergency began to develop. And, as it
happens, all of the governors of the states under siege by Gustav are
Republicans who, but for the perils confronting their areas, would be in
Minnesota themselves.

All of them, however, were down home on Monday,
conspicuously – even ostentatiously – doing their jobs. And all of them save for
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal — who was said to be (and probably was) too
busy – took the time out to address the convention via video messages during the
first actual delegate session at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Bob Riley of Alabama, Haley
Barbour of Mississippi, and Charlie Crist of Florida all reinforced the sense of
non-partisan mission by what they said and by the incidentals of how they said
it. Perry did his stand-up while members of a task force team were visibly
evacuating people from an aircraft behind him. Barbour wore a shirt emblazoned
with the initials M.E.M.A. (for Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) and
Crist posed outside with strong winds swaying the palm rees around him.

And when First Lady Laura Bush and Cindy McCain made what
amounted to onstage cameos to close out the brief afternoon session (Monday’s
night session, normally reserved for keynote messages, had been canceled), they,
too, kept to the non-partisan theme, confining themselves to gracious amenities.

None of these good deeds or fine intentions managed to completely put aside the
Republicans’ ongoing combat with the opposition party, however.
Nor, partisan politics being what it is, should they. There were clear signs all
over that the delegates and attendees to this convention had rancor and contempt
to spare for Democrats and other ideological opponents and were just biding
their time before giving it full vent.

Robin Smith, the chairman of the Tennessee Republican
Party, opened the first formal delegation breakfast Monday with an admonishment
to the delegates and alternates and other Tennesseans that they give a cold
shoulder to members of an anti-war, anti-administration veterans group which had
occupied several rooms in the same hotel, the Ramada Mall of America, as the
delegation.

“Ignore them,” she said, advising the faithful not even to
look at the literature left around the hotel by the vets’ group. One GOP
insider privy to some maneuvering that had gone on behind the scenes passed the
word that Action Had Been Taken. “You notice that most of them [the vets]
aren’t here any longer,” he said, smiling in serious and secret satisfaction.
“You got the hotel to turn them out?” he was asked. The only response was a
deepening of the smile.

Although stragglers to the breakfast meeting had missed it,
Smith claimed also to have run off would-be attendees from the Daily Kos blog,
that online lynchpin of left-of-center sentiment.

The sense of being under siege was accentuated later when,
as a chartered bus transported members of the Tennessee and Alaska delegations
to the Xcel Center, a uniformed St. Paul policeman named Mike informed riders
that there was potential trouble in the streets and that, if it developed, he
would, in effect, take over command of the vehicle.

Mike’s wife, also a St. Paul police officer, had been
called up on her day off for special duty on those selfsame streets, and she had
passed on some alarming intelligence about demonstrators who might be
encountered on the way to the arena. “They’ve got weapons and…” pause “…bags of
feces,” Mike announced.

That sobering news took a few seconds sinking in.

“Damn Democrats!” someone said finally.

“Tell me about it!” Mike said.

Still later, a group of Memphis delegates, who had waited
in vain for some promised box lunches at the Xcel Center, went foraging in
search of food. Although signs had been posted indicating that a buffet site was
nearby, none could be found – despite some determined searching of the bowels of
the place. Finally, the Memphians arrived at a stand that sold hamburgers,
fish’n chips, and the like but after they’d waited out a lengthy line, they
could find no place to sit down with their fast-food booty.

Ultimately, they would group around a tall-boy trash can,
one that had a flat top and levered sides through which refuse could be dumped.
They used the lid for an ad hoc tabletop and stood around the receptacle
munching. A passerby came along, looked at the group and shook his head
sympathetically.

“The accommodations in this place were set up by
Democrats!” he declared.

That particular j’accuse might not have made sense,
but it plainly did the man good to say it, and the exasperated GOP delegates he
said it to just as obviously enjoyed hearing it.

Politics, like war, requires an enemy, and, for all the
high-minded testimony from the dais on the convention’s first day, it was a good
bet that some good old catharctic mud-slinging was just around the corner.

BLOOMINGTON, MN — Several kickoff events that should have
formed the preamble to a week-long celebration went ahead as scheduled on
Sunday, but the thousands of attendees gathered here for the 2008 Republican
National Convention suddenly faced the prospect that their quadrennial showcase
could be washed out, quite literally, by dire events elsewhere.

The Mississippi River has its source in the Minneapolis-St.
Paul area, and way down at the other end of it, 1300 miles away, a
Katrina-sized storm was blowing nobody any good – with one possible exception
(q.v., below). Hurricane Gustav had already caused the evacuation of New
Orleans, a city facing a second and potentially final ruin, and the rest of the
Gulf area was on notice of catastrophe, as well.

The situation has left the RNC’s big party on hold, with
the normal Monday keynote events already suspended amid a very real threat that
the convention, previously expected to draw 45,000 visitors and the attention
of political junkies everywhere, could suffer a de facto cancellation, something
that goes beyond comprehension.

After the suspension of Monday’s opening-day events was
announced, party chairman Rick Davis offered this cold consolation: ‘At
some point between Monday and Thursday evening, we will convene once again to
complete the activities needed to qualify Senator McCain and Governor Palin for
the ballot in all 50 states. Beyond that, all we can say is that we will monitor
what is happening and make decisions about other convention business as details
become available.”

With worst-case scenarios
playing in everybody’s head, the Republicans gathered here had a chance to make
such merry as they could. Sunday night saw several hundred of them witnessing a
made-to-order Hollywood-style movie sending up one of the GOP’s bête noires, filmmaker Michael
Moore.

As the picture, entitled
American Carol and scheduled for release in October, was about to get its
screening at the Minneapolis Convention Center auditorium, I happened to find
myself sitting next to a wiry, youngish man named Keith Appell, proprietor of
something called CRC Public Relations. Appell’s company had at one time been
called Creative Response Concept, a name which aptly characterized its function
as a self-defense group of the political right.

“We decided to go with CRC,
though, now that we’re an all-purpose P.R. company,” Appell explained.

All-purpose or not, CRC Public
Relations was very much in the business of pushing the new movie, which, as
Appell explained, was about how one Michael Malone, a Michael Moore clone played
by the actor Kevin Hartley (brother of the late Chris, and a near-ringer for Moore), “starts out anti-American and turns out
pro-American.” The story frame parallels Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,
wherein the Moore/Malone character, who makes documentaries with names like
Die, American Pig and is campaigning to abolish the July 4th
national holiday, is transported by Kelsey Grammer as General George S. Patton
across time and space (his own and that of history at large) until he sees the
light.

Besides Grammer, some other name
actors in the movie are James Woods, Leslie Nielsen, and Jon Voigt (the latter
all dolled up as George Washington). Oh, and Paris Hilton does a cameo.

As the picture developed,
Appell’s description of the anti-American/pro-American transformation was an
accurate capsule, if you accept the premise that anything associated with
liberal politicians is “anti-American” (one pejorative example being a Jimmy
Carter impressionist telling a crowd, “Higher taxes are good for you”) and that
Islamophobia per se, among other credos of the right, is ipso facto pro-American.

The movie does feature some
decent slapstick (in a retro sequence, a banjo-playing Hitler, Mussolini, and
Tojo rock out a song medley while Neville Chamberlain shines their shoes) and a
good joke or two (“These Mexicans will do the jobs that the Taliban won’t do,”
laments a jihadist about one slave-labor operation.)

As for the film’s political
content, the crowd seemed to eat it up. Two hours worth of an alternate reality
might have been the closest thing to ecstasy some of them have realized for a
while.

The pampering of the delegates
and other attendees turned really high-class after that as the party moved
through a set of doors into the cavernous CivicFest area, roughly the size of a
Super WalMart, where a lavish feed was set out on what looked to be two score
serving tables.

Now this was a treat for
anybody, regardless of ideology. Some of the dishes were: carved roast whole
steamship beef, tataki salmon platter, duck spring rolls, scallops skewer,
filled profiteroes, asparagus canapé, wild mushroom tarts….Multiply all that
about thirty times, and you get the idea. A true feast.

Surrounding the tables in the
large hall were any number of historical exhibits imported for the occasion – a
model of Air Force One, with people queued up to go inside and check out the
cabin, intricate scale models of the Oval Offices maintained by every president
since Taft, a false front representing the White House, and artifacts galore.

The latter included period
portraits of the founding fathers, impressive panel exhibits of Americana, and
apparently genuine documents covering the span to date of the nation’s history.

Republican activists from all
over were dressed up in guides’ uniforms and were unfailingly helpful. One, a
young woman from California, pointed out, “We have a lot of things on loan from
the Smithsonian, and over there is the Treaty of Paris.” Stuff you don’t see
every day. The Treaty of Paris?

A good time was had by all, but
as news was disseminated of Gustav’s progress across the gulf and of John
McCain’s response to it, doubt began to spread about whether this 2008
convention would be a true convention at all. The pending Monday-night
appearances of President Bush and Vice President Cheney were canceled, and
delegates were put on notice that convention schedules would be contracted
and/or eliminated in tandem with the ravages wrought by the hurricane.

A party-pooper, to be sure, but
soon the gathered Republicans were grasping an emerging point. Their
nominee-to-be, McCain, was pledged to be in the danger zone along with his
vice-presidential choice, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, organizing responses
and relief efforts as long as the emergency existed, even if it meant he never
made it to Minneapolis-St. Paul at all.

McCain was, in effect, serving
as an acting president of sorts, consulting with FEMA and with Homeland Security
director Michael Chertoff and engaging in conversations with the governors of
the affected states, who just happened to be Republicans themselves.

Give the Arizona senator full
credit for acting in good faith and for rolling up his sleeves in a good cause.
But it could hardly be denied that this ill wind had blown his way an
opportunity neither he nor anyone else could have foreseen earlier. And a
rhetorical question that many had been asking at the end of last week – how can
you follow or hope to top an act like that of Obama at Invesco Field? – had
found a possible real-world answer.

BLOOMINGTON — Scott Ritter’s a big man who looks like he might work for
the mob cracking skulls for a living–or maybe just for pleasure. Even tossing
back beers at a hotel bar in Bloomington, Minnesota, on the eve of the Republican
National Convention, his eyes gleam with dangerous intentions, and when he speaks,
it’s with the measured precision of a career military man. He doesn’t want
anybody to be confused about anything he says. Except of course when he wants to
confuse you.

“Who are you,” asks the bartender, a boyish, good-natured
fellow who jokes with his customers like the sad comics working out their
laugh-less routines in the bar’s adjoining comedy club. “I keep hearing people
say you’re somebody I should know.”

“Hey, I’m just another beer drinker,” Ritter says, emptying
a Sam Adams and returning to his previous conversation.

“That’s the former U.N. arms inspector in Iraq,” interjects
a scrawny, mustache-wearing salt-of-the-earth type at
the end of the bar. “That’s Scott Ritter.”

Ritter, who is 47, but with enough baby fat in his cheeks to
pass for a man 10 years younger, had just returned from a relaxing cruise to
Barcelona and Gibraltar where his kids enjoyed having their pictures made with
the monkeys. He wants to climb Everest next, but he’s waiting for his 50th
Birthday. He doesn’t care that the notorious peak can kill the most experienced
mountaineers, burying them under tons of snow and rocks. Neither is he concerned
that at higher altitudes some people just drop dead when the blood vessels in
their brains unexpectedly explode. Ritter’s had staring contests with the likes of Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush. He’s not afraid of any
mountain.

The bartender’s jaw goes slack and he continues his genial
interruption. “Was it really necessary for us to go into Iraq?” he stammers
warily, delivering another round of drinks to the big man and his attendants.
Ritter’s lips twist themselves up into a familiar smirk as he launches into a
blood-and-guts lecture about the absolute need to engage militarily with our
enemies coupled with a thoughtful and thorough deconstruction of everything that
went wrong in Iraq.

“It wasn’t worth a single drop of American blood,” Ritter
said. “And how many of our troops have been killed now?”

Since leaving Denver on Friday nearly every conversation
I’ve encountered has been about either the war in Iraq or religion, calling to
mind Reagan’s 1985 quote to People Magazine where the old wager of secret
and illegal wars,(perhaps already in the horrible early grips of Alzheimer’s
disease) said the generation that came of age during his administration might
very be the one to witnesses Armageddon.

On the plane from Denver to Salt Lake City I sat by Rocky
Twyman, a 59-year-old African American gentleman in a blue dashiki who,
unsolicited, professed his terrifying love for Barbara Streisand. He said he
was an organizer of the Pray at the Pump movement, and that he has been
traveling around the country to worship near service stations, and ask the good
Lord to bring down the price of fossil fuels.

“Wherever we’ve gone the price has come down,” he said.
“Even Jay Leno’s made jokes about us.”

In Salt Lake City’s immaculate airport, while waiting for a
connecting flight in the awe-inspiring shadow of the mountains the Jesus talk
got even more serious. I overhear a young photographer talking to a pinch-faced
woman, He’s frantically apologizing and justifying his decision to support
Barrack Obama for President with a detailed account of his personal “prayer
life.” Nearby a squat overweight woman asks her traveling companion what he
knows about the religious affiliation of John McCain’s surprise Veep pick, Gov.
Sarah Palin. Meanwhile on a variety of TV screens scattered about the waiting
area news stations are broadcasting swirling satellite images of Gustav, then a
category 4 hurricane heading toward the Gulf Coast, threatening to recreate the
horrors visited on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina while a vacationing
President Bush strummed a guitar and nibbled on Birthday cake with GOP Senator,
John McCain.

The conversations and the imagery eerily call to mind
recent behaviors by Stuart Shepard who now leads Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the
Family, a conservative organization known for finding family-friendly
justifications for the worst of George W. Bush’s policies. Shepard called on the
Christian soldiers affiliated with his organization to pray for storms to gather
over Denver on the night Obama was scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination
at Invesco Stadium. And storms gathered all right, just not where Shepard
wanted them.

“There’s really no differences in the policies of Barack
Obama and John McCain,” says a spiky-haired 20-something in a black LA Lakers
T-shirt, whose non-discussion of the issues was rare in the airport only because
it has nothing to do with war, heaven, or the end of time.

Only two days earlier, in his address to the crowd gathered
at Invesco Stadium, Al Gore spoke about how effectively the Republicans were
able to spread the fallacious meme that he and Bush held nearly identical policy
positions in 2000. History it would seem, can’t wait too terribly long between
reruns

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Barack Obama,
but his association with a radical like Jeremiah Wright worries me,” said one
middle-aged white man in a cowboy hat to another middle aged white man in a
cowboy hat. “And I just don’t see him as a commander in chief. I don’t see him
planning a war.”

War, Jesus, Jesus, war. It’s enough to make any sentient
being long for the salad days when the Republicans only cared about small
government and tax breaks for the rich.

The Mall of America Ramada Inn is a mess of disconcerting
contradictions. The newly renovated hotel has been given an authentic vintage
makeover and although everything is fresh and sparkling the Charles
Eames-inspired décor blends with Native American motifs to cast a Johnson-era
spell. The Tennessee and Alaska delegations are staying here as are various
anti-war groups including Veterans for Peace. Some eventual uneasiness assured.

Ritter wasn’t just holding down a barstool when his cover
was blown (not that he ever minds having his cover blown). He was brainstorming
with his business associate Jeff Norman. The two were planning an ambitious
project to assist Veterans returning home from Iraq, which neither man was
currently at liberty to discuss on the record. Once his attention is turned to
the horrible mistakes made by the Bush administration–an administration that
attempted to destroy Ritter’s credibility–he’s an unstoppable force. The hulking
ex-marine lambastes Bush and Cheney, and expresses serious doubts about McCain’s
surprise running mate. Condi Rice, he says, is both the worst National Security
Director and the worst Secretary of State in History.

“Yes, she even makes Madeline Albright look good,” Ritter
says with a smirk, contemptuously describing Clinton’s head of State as a
useless fundraiser who was rewarded for her loyalty and hard work with a
position she wasn’t prepared to occupy.

“One more question,” said the bartender. “Any tips on how
to cope with all the obnoxious Republicans I’m going to be dealing with this
week?”

“Scott is a Republican,” Norman answered, both eyebrows
raised. Ritter just chuckled, and steered the conversation back toward the awful
and unnecessary war in Iraq: a war he did everything in his power to stave off.
He shakes his head in dismay as he considers the saber rattling rhetoric his
fellow Republicans have taken up in regard to Iran, and Russia.

“You know that when Russia went into Georgia President Bush
said that in the 21st Century nations no longer invade other
sovereign nations,” Ritter said, his voice dripping with and contempt.

“Jesus,” said one of the bar patrons as the irony sunk in.

Jesus indeed.

— Chris Davis