Live from the Nuke Free Zone

(via CalPundit)
The Bush/Cheney 2004 is working on venue
options for Bush’s acceptance speech at the New York convention:

The source, a veteran official of past GOP conventions,
said the 50,000 delegates, dignitaries and guests would watch off-site events
on giant TV screens. “Now, we’ll go to the deck of the USS Intrepid
as the U.S. Marine Corps Band plays the National Anthem,” he said, pretending
that he was playing the part of the convention chairman.

“Or, and this is a real possibility, we could see President
Bush giving his acceptance speech at Ground Zero,” he added. “It’s
clearly a venue they’re considering.”

Now, we already knew that the Republican convention had been moved up as close
to the 9/11 anniversary as possible in order to try and get a sympathy bump
in the polls. It wasn’t exactly the most subtle thing the Bush campaign has
ever done, and they’re not a group known for subtlety. This generated a fair
amount of disgust from the usual quarters and the traditional lame defenses
from the usual opposite numbers. However, the suggestion of using the WTC site
as a convention venue is either:

a) A junior "veteran official" speaking out of his ass,
b) A joke of questionable humor reported as fact by lazy writing,
c) Potentially a strategic blunder so big that polisci and marketing students
will be studying it a century from now.

Now, I’m of several minds considering this. The VLWC-4-Life part of me is disgusted
by the excessive, shallow political grandstanding displayed by the
Bush administration in, well, just about everything they do. The part of me
that doesn’t want to see blood and chaos in the streets really, really
hopes that the suggestion of putting Bush’s acceptance speech at the WTC site
is either option a or b.

But the lizard brain part of me would love to see it happen.

You really don’t see that level of hubris in American politics, especially
not in a sitting president. The last time I can recall anything even remotely
as blatant happened was the days of Andrew Jackson and his "King Mob"
election. Most of the excesses of American politics tend to be back-room deals;
stuff like Watergate or Teapot Dome or FDR’s plan to pack the Supreme Court.
There’s no pagentry in our political hubris, it’s all hushed and businesslike.

George W. Bush making a teary-eyed acceptance speech in front of the big hole
in Manhattan where there used to be a major landmark, cranking the American
Death Cult up to full power and invoking the Martyrs of 9/11 at every possible
instance, vowing vengance and decrying his opponent who would make a mockery
of their sacrifice (somehow not imploding from irony when he says it, too)…
nothing short of Bush suspending the Constitution and ascending to the imperial
purple would make for a greater display of the hubris of the president and his
Merry Pranksters.

The mindbending howls of outrage and the violent rejection of Bush by the citizens
of New York would make such a spectacle even the more sweeter. So go ahead,
George, do something really stupid.

Make my lizard brain happy.