Puffin’s Place

My, my, Ms Matalin’s hubby thinks the Democrats wasted last night’s convention. No one attacked John McCain. No one exercised snidery or entered into attack mode. Surely a fatal waste of one evening of our lives.

And what was offered in place of a demolishing of John McCain? Well, nothing more than Michelle Obama talking about her life and that of her husband and how each of these lives has prepared her to be first lady and her husband to be President. We watched our screens enjoying—if we permitted ourselves—listening to a woman who is articulate, interesting, and would be a terrific friend. We learned some facts, absorbed a slightly new way of looking at human experience, and gained additional appreciation of a really galvanizing couple.

But, damn, she never talked about McCain’s houses or Cindy’s millions. Wot a downer.

Then we had Ted Kennedy, bloated with chemo and burnt with radiation, who still cared enough for the dream he and millions do not want to die. He went to Denver and gave a speech. Think you would have the passion and the discipline to do that with brain cancer? Senator Ted did.

But, damn, Michelle never tore into Kennedy over Chappaquidick or sniped at his Harvard days when he cheated on a Spanish exam. Wot a waste of time.

For the Carvilles of our world—including,alas, the Clintons—politics is a blood sport, a game to be won. The values of the country have no part at all in this game. And it has been coming to this since Ronald Reagan and his cadre of California PR folk made the journey to DC. The “city on the hill” has increasingly become Hollywood, not a metaphor for the United States. And the 4-year gathering to select a leader with a vision and an urge to make Americans better people has dwindled to a PR competition totally devoid of content, of spirit, of promise and aspiration.

No wonder Michelle and Barack Obama can gather some of us like breadcrumbs, longingly trying to find our way back to the country we love.