Now that the dust has settled from the two national parties’ conventions, it might be well to assess how they turned out.
Since the Republican convention was held first in Cleveland, Ohio, the most outstanding “blip” was when the sitting governor, John Kasich, not only did not show up, but even refused to welcome the delegates to his state. The second faux pas was when the speech writer for Melania Trump lifted a couple of paragraphs from a previous Michelle Obama speech. When it was noticed, the speech writer offered her resignation, which Trump refused to accept. The third incident occurred near the end of the convention when Senator Ted Cruz was booed off the stage as he refused to endorse Trump by name.
These events caused the Democrats to universally salivate with the NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd calling the entire RNC meeting “a mess”. It is also interesting to note that the predicted protest explosion outside the convention hall never occurred as the Cleveland Police were able to handle all situations peacefully.
As to the subsequent DNC convention in Philadelphia a week later, it was rocked before it began by the release of emails detailing the prejudice of the DNC in their Primary election. The furor was so intense that it caused the abdication of the Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She was immediately replaced by a second-in-command, the disgraced Mayor of Baltimore, Maryland. The released emails showed how DNC officials from Wasserman on down crafted secret support for Hillary Clinton over her dogged rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders. This reaffirms what Sanders had touted during his populist campaign against Clinton. This was the same Wasserman who, the week before, had the temerity to contact RNC chief Prebus and ask him if he needed her help to keep order at his convention. Strangely enough, Clinton followed the Democrat modus operandi of elevating Wasserman to be the honorary co-chair of her campaign.
Let’s get to other blips that occurred at the DNC convention. A former Secretary of Defense was roundly booed, as was a decorated and heroic General. Adding to the booing was a chant of “no more war”. The latter outburst must have given great comfort to any of our enemies around the world who may have been watching. In direct contrast to the unity of the RNC meeting, the DNC witnessed a substantial “walk out” by almost half of the Sanders supporters.
Probably the most confusing aspect of the DNC event was the mixed messages delivered by former President Bill Clinton and current President Barack Obama. In Bill Clinton’s case, we were treated to a sentimental stroll down Memory Lane as he opened his remarks by charting the course of his relationship with Hillary from their initial meeting to the present day. At the end of this syrupy soliloquy, he shifted gears and ended his long memoir by stating Hillary was a dynamic “agent of change” who would right the ship of state from its current perilous course.
President Obama’s following speech took a dramatically different approach from the former President’s talk. During his speech, Obama said that everything was rosy in America at the present time, that the world had never been safer and Hillary would continue the rather fabulous time that he has spent overseeing the present course of this country. So it would seem that Hillary is about to “be torn between two lovers” as she accepts the torch from Obama and vows, according to Bill, to exchange it for an even brighter torch in order to lead America out of the “doom and gloom” attributed to Donald Trump’s view of things.
The most publicized speech of the DNC affair was the carefully scripted and staged presentation by a Mr. Kahn. Being a Gold Star father of a son that was killed in combat, he railed against Trump’s proposed Muslim ban. Being of the Muslim faith himself, Kahn challenged Trump’s understanding of the US Constitution.
After being so viciously attacked, Trump’s response was predictable and garnered him a great deal of criticism for a full week. One fact-checker noted that the left-wing national media gave the Kahn story over an hour of coverage while the mother of a slain Ben Ghazi victim got a mere 70 seconds of exposure. That mother has consistently claimed that Hillary lied to her face about the cause of the fatal incident. On a recent FOX interview with Chris Wallace, Hillary stated that perhaps the mother was so emotionally distraught at the time the bodies arrived in the US, she might not have remembered accurately what she (Hillary) had said to her. In that same interview with Wallace, Hillary stated that FBI Director Comey said that her statements to the public about her email scandals were truthful. Most sceptics say now that she is “lying about her lies”.
Outside protesters at the DNC convention were much more rowdy than those in Cleveland and the most serendipitous event occurred when an American flag burner was set aflame himself.
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