Overall, McCain's speech wasn't bad. It certainly wasn't as awkward and painful as
that one in June, but when "the maverick" starts railing against big government, corruption, and policy failures, my first thought is that he has amnesia. He's forgotten about the last 8 years and thinks he still has to vehemently fight the evil Democrat in the White House. Then I realize he's subtly trying to divorce himself from the Bush administration:
"I'm grateful to the president of the United States for leading us in these dark days following the worst attack in American history."
That was his only mention of George W. Bush. That's a good sign. However, it doesn't mean I trust McCain. Because when McCain talks about fighting lobbyists, I worry that few voters understand that his principal foreign policy adviser is
Randy Scheunemann -- a man who Pat Buchanan describes as "a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man." In other words,
McCain's foreign policy adviser is a lobbyist! Regardless of what you might think of Buchanan, that linked article is an informative one and worthy of a read.
Regarding corruption, McCain said, "I've fought corruption, and it didn't matter if the culprits were Democrats or Republicans. They violated their public trust, and they had to be held accountable." I wonder if that means he'll be seriously considering prosecuting
anybody from the Bush administration? Joe Biden, on the other hand, recently said that
criminal violations will be pursued.
The remainder of McCain's speech was unremarkable and humorless. He said the usual stuff about taxes -- Democrats are "
tax and spend" -- but personally I've come to prefer that to the Republican policy of "borrow and bomb" which I firmly believe McCain will be sticking to.
McCain also took the standard Republican call to drill here and drill now:
We'll attack -- we'll attack the problem on every front. We'll produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells off-shore, and we'll drill them now. We'll drill them now.
We'll -- we'll -- my friends, we'll build more nuclear power plants. We'll develop clean-coal technology. We'll increase the use of wind, tide, solar, and natural gas. We'll encourage the development and use of flex-fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.
I won't pretend to be a body language expert, but I have a good intuition about expressions. Did anybody else notice the little eye twitch when McCain said "electric automobiles"? It was more like an eye roll that showed disregard and said to me "yeah! right!"
Finally, I was noticing the handmade signs in the audience. Here were a few of my favorites:
You Can't Win An Occupation
McCain Votes Against Vets
The Mavrick
(That was the actual spelling on the last one.) Anyway, this concludes my coverage of the conventions, but I'll keep on blogging about the world as I see it.