The Republican National Convention wasn't so much a celebration of America as it was a superficial celebration of war and, even then, only in the service of self-aggrandizement. The Republican Party was too busy with blood and iron speeches to tell the difference between Walter Reed Army Hospital and Walter Reed Middle School in Hollywood, California. It was a perfect metaphor for a party that fought to prevent veterans from receiving full benefits and then tried to take credit for them afterwards. The party of war had a great deal to say about the surge, but nothing -- literally nothing -- to say about the war in Afghanistan, where American servicemen are still fighting and dying.I guess it just doesn't have the political cache of the surge.
McCain's speech didn't want for similar contradictions. McCain had all the empathy in the world for people who lost money in real estate investments, and none for those who actually lost their homes. McCain extolled Americans to service, listing alternatives to the military such as "become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed." But if you do choose to serve your country in ways other than going to war, you will be mocked for not having any "scars" and maligned as though the people you serve aren't worth helping. McCain called education "the civil rights issue of this century," even as his wife promised the country that McCain "would not break with our heritage."
McCain said "I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need," except his plan for fixing Washington rests entirely on his personal application of his mighty will. Most of the speech, rather than an political agenda, consisted of yet another rendition of McCain's experience as a POW, which we've never heard about before. As Hilzoy put it, one candidate said he would change Washington after being there for more than two decades by "deploying the force of his character in its general direction," and the other gave "specifics about what, exactly, he planned to do, while reminding us not just that our country was great, but why." For all the descriptions of a cult of personality surrounding Obama, all that was missing from the RNC last night was the sacrificial virgin. The tasteless use of 9/11 footage would have to suffice. One hopes, for the GOP's sake, that no one remembers who was actually president when the planes hit the towers.
McCain's weak attempts at empathy and understanding fell flat, and his call to serve a cause "greater than self," by process of elimination guided by the GOP's own rhetoric, leaves only one: McCain himself.
--A. Serwer
