Silly.  That’s the best word I can think of to sum up the first three days of the Democratic National Convention.  “Unserious,” would probably do as well.  I dare any person to watch the whole of this convention and then tell me, “Yep, these people are ready to run the country.”  More than anything else this convention has served as an extended demonstration of the essential goofiness of the Democrat Party and to their amazing ability for deceit, dishonesty and simple, old-fashioned, dumbness. 

On the third day of the convention, with the full consent of John Kerry, Al Sharpton, a man whose voice has incited race riots and murder, got up on stage and declared that President Bush wanted to turn the clock of women’s rights back a century (or, in other words, claimed that he wanted to take away the vote from women) and then claimed, to wild cheering, that, had Bush been President in the 1950’s, that Clarence Thomas wouldn’t have got to go to law school.  In other words, he called the President of the United States a segregationist and, therefore, a racist.  Then, about an hour later, Mr. Edwards, the choice of the Democratic Party for the Vice President, had the astounding nerve to get up on stage and decry “negative attacks.”  This from a party who, earlier in the night, applauded a speech from Baltimore’s Mayor, who claimed that he was more worried about the Bush Administration than he was about al-Qaeda.  Do they really expect people to believe them when they talk?

Democrats, especially in the light of the present crisis, just seem silly to me.  They’re the real dinosaurs, unprepared for the modern world.  They keep droning on about repairing relations with America’s “allies” to which I ask: which allies?  Frankly, I doubt if even they know.  They claim that America is “alone” in Iraq or, if forced to discuss the subject at length, mock the coalition by pointing out some of its less-important members.  Some of the larger nations with troops in Iraq are the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands- and those are just the nations with forces of Battalion strength or better.  Word is that even Russia’s offered to deploy troops if needed.  So whose support, exactly, is President Kerry going to get?  France?  Germany?  Red China?  I fail to see why, beyond the mythical attachment of Democrats to two of those nations, anyone should care what they think about Iraq at this point or why anyone would think that they are suitable allies of the United States.  Hell, when the United States went to war against Serbia- a war in which France ostensibly participated- the French were passing intelligence to the Serbs, something for which no one in France has ever been punished.  Democratic ramblings about “repairing our relations” aren’t serious, they’re gobbledygook that’s tested well in polls.

The same goes for the “Declaration of Energy Independence” nonsense spouted off by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.  If Democrats were really interested in “Energy Independence” they’d support oil drilling in both ANWR and off both coasts, rather than using every means at their disposal to obstruct it.  Instead the Democrats propose to offer $10 billion in subsidies to automobile manufacturers in order to get them to make Hybrid cars.  This subsidy will putatively solve the “problem” of waiting lists for people to buy hybrid cars in the United States.  As well, they’re going to offer people subsidies to buy these cars.  All of this merely shows the economic stupidity of the Democratic Party.  If there are massive waiting lists to buy a product offered in the free market, what do manufacturers do?  Do they keep making the same product at the same wait and hope that eventually demand will go down, allowing them to catch up?  Of course not: they make more of whatever the public wants and do so quickly.  There’s no bottleneck preventing the manufacture of more hybrid cars save the car companies poor estimation of the public’s demand.  By this time next year the market will surely be flooded with hybrid cars of every type, at prices the public can afford.  Any supposed tax credit could not be enacted until at least some time in the middle of 2005 and probably wouldn’t pay any money to anyone until sometime in 2006 and, even then, probably would take a little bit of time before in effected patterns of production and purpose.  In other words, by the time the Democrats’ proposal could be enacted, it would be little more than a solution to a problem solved three years before.  But don’t worry: they don’t mean to actual do any of this, it’s just stuff that tested well with the married, middle-aged, and middle-class mothers in some focus group.

The same goes for Rendell’s discussion of “alternative energy” and attack upon the high price of energy in the same speech.  The one abiding advantage of oil is that it’s notably cheaper than the other options.  You might think that wind or solar or tidal energy is a great thing because it’s environmentally friendly (except to birds, in the first instance), but cheap it is not.  Not to worry, however, even if the Democrats were to somehow win the Presidency and super-majorities in both Houses of Congress the chance of any serious action (beyond plenty of money spent on studies conducted in the districts of senior Democratic Congressmen) is essentially zero. 

There’s a wonderful moment in the Simpsons episode where Bart gets an Elephant.  The elephant, named Stampy, goes on a rampage which passes through both the Democratic National Convention (where he’s booed) and the Republican National Convention (where he’s cheered).  One of the signs at the Republican convention declares, “We’re Just Plain Evil,” while one at the Democratic convention says, “We Can’t Govern.”  That, I think, sums up some essential truths about the two parties, truths which are on display here.

Democrats live in airy-fairy land and Republicans live in the real world where real (read: evil) choices must be made on a daily basis.  Democrats do their best to see the good in everyone, including serial killers but excluding Republicans (leaving the minority of serial killers who happen to be Republicans in a difficult position).  In Democrat-land words are meaningless tools, things to be twisted and manipulated to suit whatever the situation and then to be twisted again the next day.  This is how otherwise-sane appearing Democrats can sit though Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and not come away mystified that any person with an IQ higher than the mean temperature of Alaska in winter would believe any of the movie’s self-contradictory arguments.  Like a pot-smoker dazzled by their own hand, Democrats view facts like shiny objects to be dazzled by for a moment before moving on.

Republicans may be tough and occasionally unpleasant (or “evil” to liberal souls), but they know how to fight like men.  If you punch them, they’ll punch you back and fight to win.  Democrats fight like little girls, whirling their arms about and scratching with their nails.  There’s a wonderful anecdote about Lyndon Johnson’s fighting style in Robert Caro’s fine multi-part biography.  When it appeared a fight was imminent, LBJ would (and I’m not making this up) flop onto his back, flailing his legs wildly and shouting, “If you hit me, I’ll kick you!”  That’s how a Democrat fights, and the public knows as much.

Now, there are some individual Democrats who may be competent administrators- who run successful businesses and the like.  The problems really start when you gather two or more Democrats together and they start thinking of ways to be inclusive and to ensure that no one gets their feelings hurt.  Government-by-Democrat is typically bad.  Government-by-Democratic-Committee is the sort of thing which leads to urgent multi-day conferences called to redefine mission statements and set diversity agendas.  All this may or may not (I incline towards the latter) be a good way to run a Kindergarten, but it’s certainly no way to run a war or, for that matter, the government of a great country.

I don’t know how any person of reasonably good taste could have watched last night’s butchering of the national anthem in some strange Indian language and not have laughed.  These are people so deeply committed to multiculturalism that they’ll happily laugh and sing along at the Star Spangled Banner is butchered by two ugly Indians singing in some screeching and indecipherable tongue.  Do you really think that any of them have the capability to make the sort of hard choices that are necessary to fight what is, in many ways, an essentially religious war?  And I know that President Bush and other Republicans have had nice things to say about Islam (the “Religion of Peace” and all of that) but the difference is that the Democrats believe it. 

Think back three years, to the Afghan War.  At that time it was seriously debated whether or not we ought to stop bombing our enemies out of respect for Ramadan, one of the primary holidays of their heathen faith.  In 1998 Operation Desert Fox, Clinton’s only major campaign against Iraq, was halted so that it would not drag on into the month of Ramadan and therefore offend Moslems.  At one point in the 1990’s the Clinton Administration had a chance to kill Bin Laden but didn’t take the shot because of a remote possibility that doing so might possibly cause as many as sixty civilian casualties among our enemies.  When Clinton finally bombed Iraq after it attempted to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 he did so at night so as to ensure he wouldn’t actually kill any of the people who planned the assassination.  Are these the sort of men to which we now wish to entrust the fate of the Republic?

Democrats may or may not be nice people, but they’re not ready to defend America from its enemies.  When the Democrats try and talk tough about “dealing” with North Korea and Iran, just what do you think that they mean?  When John Edwards says that a new President will ensure that Syria and Iran don’t interfere with the establishment of democratic government in Iraq, what do you believe that he’s talking about?  Certainly he’s not talking about threatening or using military force.  After all, for all of their tough talk, the Democrats have made it perfectly clear that they’re never going to use military force as it has been used in Iraq and any serious action against either Syria or Iran would require at least as much of (and, in the case of Iraq, substantially more of) an effort than that which has been expended in Iraq.  So when they say that they’re going to “deal with” our enemies, they use choose their words advisedly: in this one case, the Democrats mean what they say.

And what kind of deal can we expect the Democrats to cut with Iran, to choose one example?  I’d rather expect one like that which was reached with North Korea: keep on bribing them to shut up about their developments in order to keep the problem under wraps until a Republican comes to power and refuses to pay protection money.  Then, when the cessation of appeasement upsets the hostile power, blame the Republican President for the problem you caused.  That’s Democratic foreign policy wisdom.

The question that the American people (or at least the tiny minority of the American people who’ve actually bothered to watch this thing) are going to have to ask themselves is this: do they want these people running the country the next time our enemies attack?  Do they trust them to, when a terrorist threat emerges, act?  Or do you expect them to tie themselves up arguing about the legality of detaining Ahmed Terrorist?  I’d suggest that the latter is more likely.

When there’s a hijacked plane flying towards the Capitol, do you want a President who will authorize a shoot-down or one who will get into a debate with his lawyers, an Islamic theologian, and his human rights advisor?  Do you want a President who will kill terrorists or one who will worry about their civil rights?