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ShrubStock Tanks
It's been downhill since Monday -- and it's gonna go downhill for the GOP
by Dave "Doctor" Gonzo

Wednesday, August 2, 2000 -- NEW YORK -- Maybe Mac lucked out.

He got to wander the floor of the GOP convention in Philly all day Monday -- and had to be in DC early yesterday and today.

He lucked out -- he got to see the day that the GOP tried -- and failed -- to fool America into thinking that the really, really care about minorities, the disadvantaged, even two-income families that barely manage to scrape by.

It was The Big Lie attempted on a grand scale by what Mac called "a convention of poseurs."

And Monday was not officially "lie about how we love the coloreds and 'spanics" day, either -- Monday was "officially" about "making sure no child gets left behind" -- not-so-thinly veiled code for "rob piublic schools of much-needed funds to finance for-profit charter school scams."

Yes, scams. If Bush, a man emerging as a bigger and far more perilous phony than even Kenneth Winston Starr, cared so damn much about "making sure no child gets left behind," he would have used what little power he has as Texas Governor -- and it is little power -- to demand an explanation from a charter school in his state's own capitol city that shut down with no warning, leaving hundreds of kids without a place to learn.

That's right -- those kids were left behind. Where was George?

Since that memorable Monday -- an infomercial so chock-full of hypocritical dishonesty that there's no way the GOP can live it down -- we've had two days of dull-o-rama.

Yesterday, we were bored to tears by the GOP's "please, please let us pump up our military to obscene levels so that we can have a new Cold war against somebody -- anybody -- preferably some sneaky Asians." The first alleged high point of the evening were Norman Schwarzkopf, who is still trying to sell the Cheney-Powell Desert Storm Debacle as some sort of grand and honorable victory -- which is true (at least as far as "grand victory" goes) if you're Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon or the Sultan of Brunei. The second supposed climax was supposed to be John McCain's speech -- but instead we saw a definitive sellout of the "maverick reformer." Not one word on campaign finance reform -- it was a long butt-smooching session, with JJ now brought well to heel by George W. Bush, who isn't even one-tenth the man McCain, short-tempered and mean though he may be, truly is.

Tonight, we were treated to more boredom -- anticlimaxed by Dick Cheney, who has all the charisma of Ben Stein with a migraine -- and none of the originality. He set out to attack the Clinton-Gore years and policies.

But he slipped up big time.

Remember when everyone piled on Joe Biden for lifting an entire section a stump speech from a British labor candidate? Remember how the press would just not let Biden alone about that huge gaffe? Well, try this on for size: Dick Cheney outright stole Al Gore's "It is time for them to go" mantra from 1992.

Hey Dick, a boring plagiarist is still a plagiarist. Yale would have booted you for plagiarism.

The Doc doesn't even have to wait until tomorrow to tell you that ShrubStock has tanked, thanks to the efforts of the convention planners and the larcenous Dick Cheney.

And it's even tanked in the ratings -- people would rather watch repeats than even the one hour of Reader's-Digest-style coverage that some networks ran Monday and Tuesday.

Well, Dick is winding up his partially purloined speech and the crowd, as coached, is going wild -- but it sounds to The Doc like all those GOPers can't decide on what to chant -- there's a counterpoint of at least three different slogans, none of them in sync with themselves or each other! Good grief, white folk have NO rhythm at all!

Not only that, but they can't even see that they've dug their own grave with all their lies about "loving" minorities and the poor, "rebuilding" the military, and recycling Bush Daddy's inner circle stealing Al Gore's lines.

Mark my words -- or better yet, Mac's, who called me near midnight on Monday: "It's all over for the GOP. All over."

And we don't even have to wait until George W. Bush opens his smirking curled little mouth tomorrow. Although that won't hurt the Dems either.

'Nuff said.