The Scoop - http://www.bobharris.com/ THE SCOOP for August 2, 2000 ___________________________ GOP Convention Notes #4 � 2000 Bob Harris http://www.bobharris.com mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * = italics GOP Convention notes from Tuesday and Wednesday morning... Just how large is the age difference is between Dick Cheney and George W. Bush? Go ahead. Take a guess. Don't look now. The answer is below. ___________________________ The Republicans have broken up the Roll Call of States into a multi-night miniseries. Which means all of the foreordained votes for Bush won't finally come in until shortly before his nomination. If you can't have actual suspense, at least you'll have a pointless and insulting imitation thereof. Not unlike the whole democratic process itself, unfortunately. ___________________________ On the event schdule, 7 a.m.: The Great American Farm Breakfast, hosted by something called the Fertilizer Institute. You can just start making up your own punchlines now. ___________________________ Last night's speech on trade by Jim Kolbe, Congressman from the Arizona district including Tucson, was the first time in history that a GOP convention was addressed by an individual who was openly gay. Except... no reference to Jim's sexuality was allowed in the speech, nor in the intro, nor in Jim's appearance on my radio program this morning. It's not that Jim's in the closet. Far from it; yesterday, he was guest of honor at a reception for gay elected Republicans. As my colleague Will Durst pointed out, the breed is a rare one: Jim was the only gay elected Republican listed. So they didn't exactly need to book a suite. However, the conservatives here are stiff as a saddle horn -- a big chunk of the Texas delegation was supposedly ready to walk if any reference was made -- so the policy toward gays remains Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and For God's Sake, Don't Tell During The Convention and Risk Splitting The Party. I agreed not to mention the gay thing because Jim is currently the GOP's spotlight spokesman on trade, an issue dear to the heart of progressives, and one rarely gets the chance to engage someone in that position in a meaningful dialogue from a left perspective. Besides, it's an issue we can come back to. China trade policy may or may not change, but Jim will probably be gay for a while. So we did the interview... what a great experience this turned out to be. We totally disagree on virtually every political point, but we were able to really listen and joke with each other in a way that I wish all such discussions could be held. The Congressman actually listened, and we continued the spirited discussion off the air afterwards, the way they taught me as a boy political discussions are supposed to be. I might think he's wrong about almost everything on Earth, but I like him. Dude is welcome on my show anytime, and I'm sure he'll be back regularly. I don't know what else is going on, but I can finally promise you that something resembling an actual political debate has occured here. ___________________________ And it won't be the only one. In spite of the public face of party unity, the GOP's internal hostility over social issues is threatening to develop into a devastating schism. VP candidate Dick Cheney's daughter Mary is a lesbian. Will she be allowed on the podium to stand with her father? Probably. If not, any pretense to Family Values will have to be abandoned. Will Mary's longtime partner be allowed onstage, as would be the spouses of any corresponding heterosexual offspring? Probably not, unless George W. can either pacify the angry townspeople or decides he can win the White House without carrying his home state. As a bonus, the Parents Television Council, representing as many as 500,000 possible torch-wielding villagers, has threatened to pull their support from Bush if pro wrestler The Rock is allowed to accompany Dennis Hastert onstage for the opening gavel of tonight's session. Let's repeat this for clarity: the Speaker of the House of Representaties is actually about to be escorted into the Republican National Convention by a professional wrestler who refers to making women wrestlers into "poontang pies." Yes, your computer screen really says that. Which means, for the moment, that the current Bush and GOP position is: "poontang pies" -- OK; lesbians who actually love each other -- not OK. And they wonder why most women tend to prefer to vote for Democrats... ___________________________ Many members of the Texas delegation are wearing red, white, and blue yoked shirts and dresses with enormous stars and lots of glittery bits. And these people would abolish the desecration of the flag? ___________________________ On the event schedule, 4 p.m.: IRA-PALOOZA. As thanks to Congress for their desired "pension reform" legislation, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Fidelity, and American Express are among the companies honoring Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. I'm not sure, but I think I'd rather he just hang out with The Rock. ___________________________ I attended yesterday's Youth Rally in the company of Will Durst and Dan Perkins aka Tom Tomorrow, syndicated cartoonist of This Modern World. We couldn't help but notice the theme music someone in the GOP chose for the program's speakers. Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, a dim 20ish conservative pundit whose blonde hair and long legs surely in no way enhance her career as a Fox News commentator, was introduced with "American Woman." The sole Hispanic speaker was introduced with "La Bamba." I'm surprised nobody introduced Colin Powell with "Soul Man." ___________________________ Condoleeza Rice may have gotten high marks from some mainstream pundits for her speech last night, but I found it every bit as calculatedly insincere, in both form and content, as anything Newt ever did. Had the TV directors chosen a wider angle, you would have seen that what looked like actual speaking skill, connecting with the crowd on all sides, was actually carefully-coached stagecraft. Every time Condy did that look left, look right, look straight ahead routine, she was reading the speech rigidly and directly from the teleprompters set up about five feet from each shoulder, and then slamming the last line of each paragraph straight into the camera to project sincerity. Over and over and over. The result is as predictable as Domino's: Sincerity, delivered on demand, every fifth sentence, or your money back. The content was just as contrived. For example, Condy's dad was indeed a Republican, but the implication of lifelong love of all things GOP is false: according to Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, in her 20s, Condy was a registered Democrat. And if her claim that the GOP "sees me as an individual, not as part of a group" is true, how can one explain that the percentage of minorities appearing onstage here outweighs the percentage of minorities actually present among the delegates by a factor of about four? ___________________________ The death chamber in Texas is silent this week. One of my guests this morning was Lou Dubose, editor of the Texas Observer and co-author, with Molly Ivins, of the best-selling *Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (Random House), a hard-hitting, thoroughly documented biography which leaves no question that the GOP candidate is in way, way, *way* over his head. Executions have proceeded at an unprecedented pace for the last several months, but it dawned on Lou and I during the conversation that we hadn't heard of a single execution since more than a week before the convention started. A few minutes later, a listener emailed in the results of his visit to the Texas Dept. of Corrections website -- noting, incidentally, that "corrections" is a remarkable euphemism when applied to executions -- and, yes, the steady grind of the death works has indeed been brought to a temporary halt. We're guessing that a lethal injection might not be the best form of PR the night of the official nomination. Apparently, prisoners are now literally living and dying according to the whims of the Bush for President marketing campaign. Compassionate conservatism indeed. Not to worry, though: Texas will make up for lost time with two executions scheduled for a week from today. These, I am sure, will be termed Executions With A Purpose: Together. ___________________________ After the Youth Rally, an even creepier deal: the Christian Coalition shindig, held in a ballroom in a big fancy hotel downtown. Outside, demonstrators were stopping traffic in the oppressive sticky heat. Tempers flared. Arrests began, eventually totaling roughly 300 so far. Hope for a convention and protests without violence dissolved. Inside, Pat Robertson's people saved themselves and the world in air-conditioned comfort. The Christian Coalition logo is a white star on a swooshy circular blue background, strongly resembling an Air Force emblem. The program was preceded by John Philip Sousa marches on the speakers, and the first entertainers did a Branson-style medley of the military service theme songs. Jesus, as I recall, never wore a military uniform. Speakers included Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), who repeated the false and easily-debunked claims of a recent anonymous email asserting that all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were ruined for their courageous act. Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma told the ballroom that this gathering was as large as the Republican main convention. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that "when you hear the words 'Campaign Finance Reform,' some liberal is trying to shut you up." An interesting tactic: opening a gathering which supposedly honors Jesus with a long series of outright and obvious lies. I thought about starting a betting pool on how long until someone disparaged a Jew. Jay Alan Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a parallel universe anti-ACLU mirror organization, took the stage and made reference to the extreme Jewishness of New York City. This, presumably, is OK, since Sekulow himself converted. Still, it got a laugh of recognition. Good enough for my betting pool. Elapsed time: 57 minutes. And then, finally, Pat Robertson himself. I can't begin to reproduce Pat's pleasantly hallucinogenic speaking style. If you've read his books or watched "The 700 Club," you're already familar with the general outline. To paraphrase: the liberals want campaign finance reform because the lesbian Satanists who can't play chess want our children to become communist sex robots that will destabilize Israel and manipulate the weather for the New World Order. I can only imagine what Jesus himself would say to this. Very possibly: "What the f***?" ___________________________ 1) On the way into the Coalition gig, I shared a shuttle bus seat with an attractive young lady who writes for the MTV website. Let's just say I noticed how attractive she was. 2) And she seemed to think I was attractive, too, which made me feel rather proud, given the age difference. 3) We arrived more than an hour early for the program, so we decided to drop into this market we had passed to grab something to eat. We were soon separated in the crowd, though, and while I could have found her, I was too tired to bother. 4) I also hadn't eaten much other than TastyKakes in days, and the deli counter I was at had a number of gorgeous veggie dishes, so I order a bit too much and woofed it right down. 5) After lunch, I returned to the ballroom, which had become crowded with new arrivals. I found a great seat just right of center about halfway back, but then I noticed how much better the view would be if I moved to another seat in the center. 6) Someone else got it first, however, rushing ahead to beat me to the position, which ticked me off a little. 7) When I returned, someone else had taken the seat I was originally in. So now I just wished I had stayed where I was so I could have the point of view this other person did. At which point, I asked myself, a propos of the big Christian bash about to begin: how long had it been since I had committed each of the Seven Deadly Sins? A little less than an hour. Probable lifetime average, including infancy and time spent asleep: one Deadly Sin every fifteen minutes or so. At four Deadly Sins per hour, 96 per day... I'm 36 years old... I've probably committed a lifetime total of roughly 1.2 million Deadly Sins. So who the hell am I to judge anybody...? ___________________________ So what's the actual age difference between Dick Cheney and George W. Bush? Most common answer, even here at the GOP convention: 20 years. Actual answer: 5 years. George W. Bush, 54, is only five years younger than Dick Cheney, 59. The fact that Cheney is viewed as a full generation older tells you something about just how serious a candidate this young and callow old man really is. ___________________________ ___________________________ Bob Harris is a political humorist whose morning radio show can be heard online from 8-11 am EST at http://www.radioforchange.com. To receive a free email subscription to The Scoop, just send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________ Bob�s Big Plug-O-Rama� (updated 7/29/00): *Steal This Book And Get Life Without Parole* was recently nominated for a Firecracker Alternative Book Award as one of the five best political books of the year. Also, the American Booksellers Association recently made *Steal This Book And Get Life Without Parole* a Recommended choice. The book can be ordered directly from http://www.commoncouragepress.com/steal.html at 25% off retail. You can read some ridiculously kind reviews at http://www.bobharris.com/book.htm. The morning show on www.RadioForChange.com airs from 8-11 each morning. Recent interviewees include Ralph Nader, Winona LaDuke, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Cong. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Katha Pollitt, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Ken Silverstein, Arianna Huffington, Kate Clinton, and Howard Zinn. The show is a total blast. 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