I traveled to Tampa, FL, last-minute for work (good timing), so I got to experience some of the hullabaloo from the vantage point of an on-the-outskirts La Quinta. My observations:
1. Tampa’s uber security perfectly captured the two paths our country faces.
There was something inspiring about seeing the delegates from all across the country bringing their point-of-view to the RNC. There was also something incredibly uninspiring about the massive police presence.
They may have had good reason for the security; from rape threats to suspicious packages, the Left made it clear how “peaceful” they are. Necessary or no, a city essentially walled off with patrolling squads of police and other units covering every block felt a little too European, and a little too unAmerican.
2. Investigative reporters took the week off, it seems.
While I was a little too busy to do much reporting for LI, I did notice was the plethora of media “on the inside” and hardly any investigative reporting going on “on the outside.” If the media–and that includes so-called “new media”–had ventured beyond the “media center” and hotel lobby, they might have found quite a few stories worth reporting besides the obvious Code Pink protesters.
Still, who wouldn’t want to be there for the balloon drop photo-op.
3. Our government is apparently in the business of community-organizing.
Rebel Pundit documented the uniformed presence of the DOJ’s Community Relations Service helping the Occupy protesters (even high-fiving them). This agency, created as part of the Civil Rights Act to act as a “peacemaker,” has been steadily increasing its budget, staff, and plans to organize a community near you. Their jurisdiction to act as peacemaker now includes all “hate crimes,” as redefined in 2010, which doesn’t answer the question of why they feel it is part of their responsibility to community organize protests at conventions.
This and countless other reports from those who went out into the crowd–not for attention, but to report–barely made the headlines. See Lee Stranahan’s excellent coverage here.
4. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz dines with the 1 percent.
I bumped into her at local institution Bern’s Steakhouse on Wednesday evening. Needless to say she wasn’t happy about being spotted there. It doesn’t exactly support her class warfare message.
5. MSNBC is the place for political coverage.
If you must turn on your t.v. (instead of reading LI), let it be MSNBC. The Professor has already documented the hilarity that ensued after Romney’s mocking of President Obama’s grandiose claims about the environment, on Maddow last night. Don’t miss their next head-spinning. You also would have missed the debut of what appears to be the Left’s messaging strategy for attacking Romney’s religion.
In sum, the RNC presented a contrast to the messages of division, gloom, and class warfare the Left would have us buy. But outside the convention walls, we also saw hints of a future where some in new media, having been invited inside the party, like the balloon-drop view a little too much.
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“Debbie Wasserman-Schultz dines with the 1 percent”
Slight variation on Shaidle’s First Law: “It’s different when we EAT it”.
“The Convention Made Us Think–How About You?”
Dedicated to “The Empty Chair”
Did you think it enough to be “likeable”?
Did you believe it sufficed to be “cool”?
You once promised command of the land and the seas,
For four years you have played us for fools!
Bernanke’s abusing his printing press, .
Geithner (tax cheat) never had one good plan.
And we found you’d betrayed us and lied to us.
When you claimed we’d “unite” at your hands!
You still haven’t a clue as to what to do,
To make jobs, spend much less, calm our days.
So you get up and turn on your Media whores,
And go golfing in a Choom** induced haze.
You made food stamps a “virtue”, you degraded our fisc*,
You bowed lower and lower each day.
To the tyrants and despots whose great goal in life,
Was to kill the American Way.
You said, “I’ll do it in three or I’m outta here”;
Now you say “I just need another four”.
Since you spit on our seniors and crippled our land,
We’d be crazy to allow you do more!
* Fisc = the treasury of a nation – see “national debt” rating downgrades.
** Choom = both a noun (marijuana) and a verb (“to smoke marijuana”)
Barry Soetoro aka Barry Obama aka Barrack Hussein Obama aka … CREATED NEW WAYS TO GET HIGH. See, http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/…
obama. These included BOTH marijuana and cocaine aka coke aka blow aka “Barry Fuel”…
I dunno… I’m kinda glad that the media weren’t outside giving lots of publicity to irrelevancies.
“The RNC from a hanger-on’s perspective”
Should be:
“The RNC from a hanger-anne’s perspective”
2. Investigative reporters took the week off, it seems.
Yanno, Anne, in light of the purported “peanut throwing/racism” incident that supposedly took place on the floor of the RNC convention and involved a CNN camera-woman, I was kind of wondering about that too.
I mean, here we have one of the nation’s premier news gathering organizations, CNN, their employee is supposedly assaulted and racially harassed at a important national event — and there’s no investigate follow-up, no names of the supposed perps, and absolutely no vid or stills of the incident itself.
As comedian Red Buttons used to warble: strange things are happening. 🙂
And the Beastly Day is keeping that BS alive today.
It has the same feel as the “spitting” lie told by Deemocrat Congressthings.
“False, but accurate”.
The LSM was there. Nobody has a video. Nobody has pix of the perps either throwing or being bounced. Nobody has the name of a source. Yet the LSM was right there when one of their own was disrespected by “Republicans”?
I doubt the incident happened at all or as the LSM said it did. I think the absence of pictures is to prevent us from finding out that the perps were Democrats, infiltrating the Convention, just like Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz was, and doing something to fit and augment the LSM-Democrat meme about the “racist GOP.”
I do not argue there is no racism in some people in the GOP (racism is like sunshine; it will always be there); however, I do argue that this unverified, by images, names, and other identifiers, event is bogus.
Our government in a Barack Obama presidency has gone into the business of despotism.
It is entirely possible that will be permanent if he is re-elected. It will absolute if he prevents the election, or refuses to relinquish power if he loses.
But then, Mitt Romney’s campaign plane could mysteriously crash.
Remember who we’re dealing with.
Regarding #3: This administration is all about picking winners and losers for us. Perfectly logical that they would help keep themselves one of the former. Should be illegal, mind you, if it isn’t already. Waiting for the Chicago 7 to sue for retroactive CO support. Maybe Bill Ayers could file a claim, too.
Did you need a photo ID to get in? YES! Do you need a photo ID to vote? NO!
Don’t come the “We’re so superior to the Europeans …” to me (see point 1). ‘European’ would have been smashed window displays , behaviour learnt courtesy of Watts, Detroit, LA, remember?