TURNING THEM OFF

TURNING THEM OFF

I am angry.  

For four days, I have barely turned on the television.  I've caught snippets of the speeches from the Republican National Convention -- Chris Christie encouraging delegates to "lock her up"; Rudy Giuliani blaming blacks for the death of cops; countless walk-ons claiming Hillary Clinton was responsible for the death of our ambassador and others in Benghazi; Melania plagiarizing Michelle.

But every time I tried to focus, the screen went blank.  

I am, by reputation and long practice, what many would call a political junkie.  Not the sort of political junkie who makes his living at it -- like the pundits and all those politicians who keep getting re-elected each year.  But at one point I wanted to be one of them. Only the voters saved me. In 1992 I ran for Congress and lost.  

In 1993, I met Bruce Babbitt -- then Secretary of the Interior in the first Clinton Administration -- at a fundraiser in upstate New York.  A photographer was following him. I told him about that run for Congress  and asked if he'd take a picture with me.  He said "Sure." And just before the camera was about to click, he whispered in my ear . . .

"You still have the virus."

I know he was right.

Because a year later, I ran again.

And lost again.

The addiction, however, was still there.  From 1996 to 2001, I served on the New York State Democratic Committee and for a couple of years was even one of the vice-chairs of the party.   In 2000, I pulled an all-nighter waiting for the networks to decide who won the Presidency. As we all know now, they couldn't.  Throughout this period,  I helped other people run. And when it came to the political conventions, I was all in.

Much to the chagrin of my family, I spent a week during the summer of 2004 screaming at the Republicans maligning John Kerry.  They were in New York City at their convention.  I was on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. 

On vacation.  

But that didn't matter.  For me, at convention time, it was gavel-to-gavel.

Until this year.  

And this GOP convention.

Cleveland was gavel-to-gavel bile.  Sheer hatred.  Packaged in paranoia.  The "Melania loves Michelle" kerfluffle was a respite, an unforced time-out from the otherwise steady diet of lies . . .

Served up by a retinue of C-list speakers . . .

To an audience that had more in common with a lynch mob than a nominating convention. 

Trump is their strong-man in waiting.  He has no ideas, just loud- mouthed pronouncements.  And I mean it when I say "loud"; he spent most of his seventy-seven minute "speech" last night . . .

Shouting.

He is an an out-sized ego married to a lazy brain.   He pretends his opponents have brought us to the brink of catastophes that do not exist -- impugning illegal immigrants as the criminals they are not; asserting ISIS was brought to you by Clinton when its true parents were the neo-cons and  Bush II; claiming the number of cops killed has risen when over the last four decades it has been steadily declining; making the same claim about homicides generally; and even asserting that a professional like FBI Director James Comey is corrupt because he refused to indict someone who did not commit a crime.

By force of will, he then claims these made-up problems will disappear with his ascension to the Presidency. He tells you this will happen "fast," but he never tells you how.   Or, if he does, the means are either things that won't happen (the "wall"), haven't worked (the "tax cut" or combat troops  in Iraq), are truly dangerous (the effective renunciation of NATO),  or are  . . .

Just plain crazy.

Falling into this last category was the ludicrous offer -- reported during the GOP Convention this week --  that, in an effort to induce Gov. Kasich to accept the Vice-Presidential nomination, Trump -- through his son, Donald, Jr.-- told Kasich that Trump would make him the most powerful Vice-President in history by giving him absolute authority over all domestic and foreign policy.

In other words, before he even assumed the office, Trump wanted to out-source the Presidency to his running mate.

No wonder critics think he's more interested in getting the job than he is in actually doing it.

These people -- Trump, Christie, Rudy, the assorted hangers-on,  and the audience of lunatic-fringers --  have no judgment, no perspective.  They cannot distinguish what is critical from what is important, what is important from what is advisory, what is advisory from what is secondary, and what is secondary from what is irrelevant.  They do not separate fact from fiction.  They lie with impunity.

And they think the rest of us are going to stay-tuned for the continuing show.

Not me.

I just turned it off.

And on election day this November, so will the country.

We are not the fools they take us to be.