American Elephants

What a Convention!  As partisan people — and of course we are — we watched both conventions and are looking forward to tonight.  Sarah Palin’s speech was a triumph, she held the audience in the palm of her hands. Rudy Guiliani was the best I have ever seen him.   But the most compelling moment of the whole convention was when little Piper Palin, holding the baby Trig, licked her palm to slick down the baby’s hair.

Utterly human.  No director could have planned such a charming, ordinary moment, nor so completely repudiated the sneers of the elite media.  And that’s the difference.

The glitter and gloss of the Democrat convention was impeccable theater.  Famous bands, Roman temple, oval office carpet, immense stadium, fireworks, confetti.

The Democrat convention was an angry convention. Delegates heard a description of an America at the brink of another Great Depression, of lost jobs, lost homes, lost health, lost war, lost friends.  What is the matter with these people?  They live in the freest country with the greatest opportunity and the least class consciousness in the world and they yearn to turn it into — France?

Democrats are angry because humanity doesn’t live up to their expectations. These are people whose idea of high humor has been to stick a Hitler moustache on George W. Bush and a Nazi uniform on Dick Cheney.  They are not amused by humanity.  If only you will give them power, they will fix things and make them perfect.

But humanity is. It cannot be fixed. Real people struggle, make mistakes, do foolish things as well as noble things.  Half the population, by definition, has less than average intelligence.  To get through life, you neeed a healthy sense of humor and a goodly amount of stoical resignation. We’re a mess, the lot of us; but we work at getting better, and fairly often we succeed. And we do not need Government to fix things for us.   We have to learn to pick ourselves up and try once more.  It helps when we have candidates who grasp the nature of humanity, and have a sense of what government can do and what it can’t.

That’s why Republicans had a happy convention.  Yes, they made fun of the Democrats, but they weren’t angry about it.  They were laughing.  That’s probably what made the liberals so angry.

If you watched the Palin family, Willow held the baby while Bristol held her fiance’s hand.  Then Cindy McCain held the baby, then Todd Palin took over.  Even little babies get heavy after a while.  Then Todd had to stand up, so he passed the baby to Piper.  This is how normal families work.  When one member of the family has to do something different, everybody pitches in — because it’s family. The family is enriched by the success of another member, whether it is winning a snowmachine race or negotiating a pipeline.  That’s the real America.