Who thinks last night's story wasn't . . .

[MrModerate]

That Hucklebee's a chucklehead, that Giuliani can spew bile, or that Palin can complete a sentence without swallowing her tongue -- or even that the media is creaming in its collective pants over Palin's distinctly mediocre performance . . . but that REPUBLICANS ARE CREEPY?

The mean-spiritedness, the bloodthirstiness, the venom, the bile, the Stepford chants, the sense of privilege and exceptionalism, and most importantly, the undercurrent of menace to anyone who isn't White Like Them.

*That's* the story.

Not that many uncommitteds would subject themselves to enough of a convention to immediately pick that up, but anyone without blinders had to be substantially unnerved by the pathology exhibited in that room. Those people are sick and they want us gone. The was the most freeperlike crowd of 'Licans I've ever seen.

And regular folks don't like freepers any more than they like the creepy guy down at the end of the block who never comes out, never mows his lawn, and into whose backyard neighborhood cats disappear.

They need to be out of power, and out of power long enough to wither away and be replaced by something more healthy in the way of a right-of-center opposition (from where I don't quite know).

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. I come away from the RNC with that icky, I need to take a shower,

feeling every darned cycle. It's gross. I will never erase the image of that older woman with the purple heart bandaid on her quivering chin from 2004.

[pnorman]

18. I was looking for that photo (which apears here on DU occasionally)

I can put it to good use! Can anyone here provide it?

pnorman

[ScreamingMeemie]

30. Here you go.

Top 10 Conservative Idiots from back then:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/04/169.html

[pnorman]

31. THANKS! (I LOVE my DU!)

MY EYES!

pnorman

[ScreamingMeemie]

32. I threw up a little in my mouth when I google searched it.

:hi:

[pnorman]

33. If Purple Hearts were awarded to civilians, you'd be in line for one!

Here's the PERFECT accompaniment to that photo: http://www.archive.org/details/gopconstrm

pnorman

[Rockholm]

2. And how creepy was the crowd? Yikes.

What I did notice is that what I would call the "old line Yankee republicans" did NOT look happy one iota. Did any of you notice that? There were a whole bunch of people who just looked internally upset with this whole charade.
It was the freaky ones who were all frenzied up.

[sunnybrook]

3. the moderates will particularly be impressed by...

"Drill, Baby, Drill" and the "Prosperity" signs.... right

[stuntcat]

6. that

omg that makes me glad I didn't watch x(

[DeeDeeNY]

4. The audience was scarier than the speakers

I can't imagine those in attendance at the Dem. convention booing loudly at the mention of McCain. This bunch behaved like a crowd of 7-year olds. At least they weren't wearing those purple star bandaids like they did in 04.

[groovedaddy]

8. It amazed me that the camera crews seemed to know where each minority in the

hall was located and made it a point to focus on them on some point. During the wide pans, you can tell the crowd is overwhelmingly white and older. Pandering of the worse sort!

[Erin Elizabeth]

27. I mentioned this last night, but I feel like I personally know

Smiley Asian Lady, Cheering Black Man and Stoic Black Lady. They were the only three I saw, over and over and over and over again.

[sunnybrook]

10. no, because NOW that would be wrong

to be disrespectful of an American hero who served this country...

[DeeDeeNY]

12. Exactly right

[groovedaddy]

5. They have to completely ignore the last 8 years. Obama nailed it in his

speech when he said they can't run on their record. Their only option is to attack.

[Erin Elizabeth]

28. He also nailed it when he said how out of it, how out of touch they are.

I didn't hear a damn thing about the economy or other things of concern to Americans.

[groovedaddy]

34. Amen! They wouldn't touch those topics. n.t

[vi5]

7. I'm hoping the whole thing has the 1992 effect..

I remember the completely over the top right wing christianist nature and bent of the '92 election turned off a lot of important voters and some say cost Bush 1 the election.

Let's hope this has the same effect, but I don't know. This is a much different time.

[Patiod]

24. The Pat Buchanan thing

Which actually made my right-wing hard-core Pat Buchanan-like aunt refuse to vote because she said it was UGLY.

[MrModerate]

35. I think Giuliani killed it for them. Hockey moms aren't going to . . .

vote for the party of that grinning ghoul.

[OneGrassRoot]

9. No humanity. At all. Very Nazi-esque. n/t

[calimary]

15. Sincerely not trying to be a smart-ass here - but I don't see much humanity in most of these folks

AT ALL. Lotta meanness, though.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6922745

[OneGrassRoot]

17. I completely agree....

it's just become so pervasive and unable to be ignored as of this week. I mean, we've seen it for a long time, but something just made it ABSOLUTELY UNDENIABLE that they have no humanity this week, and they are damn proud of it.

Obama's one phrase has been my mantra of late because it's so perfect:

They take pride in being ignorant.

Scary shit.

[calimary]

20. And they don't quite seem able to own their own failures yet, either, do they?

TRULY scary shit.

[OneGrassRoot]

22. Failures? What failures?

Too blinded and narrow-minded (forget narrow, there's no room at all for anything beyond talking points) to even see the failures.

I'm trying to call out the freeper trolls in another post that dropped. Guess I need to find it and kick it myself.

Where'd they go? They were swarming here last night.

:shrug:

[PA Democrat]

11. Their fanatical cheering and jumping up and down (literally) every time

Obama was criticized reminded me of a lynch mob.

[MadrasT]

13. I had to go watch recordings of last week's DNC speeches

to cleanse myself and "talk myself down" from the icky factor.

[invictus]

14. K&R

[Maraya1969]

16. No one in the Democratic party laughed at any republicans but they thought

the Democrats were fodder for a late night comedian. I thought it was disgusting. Especially Gouliani.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. ...here, kitty-kitty...here, kitty-kitty...kitty?...

[TwilightGardener]

21. They've had the country by the nutsack for 8 years, and they're more

pissed off and angry and motivated than ever--I guess because we're still here--they aren't finished yet. By "we" I mean sane Americans, the 70-percenters.

[knitter4democracy]

23. Seriously creepy. Massive liars, too.

The little bit I could handle was just chock-full of lie after lie after lie. Then, in panning across the crowd, it was all older white people, mostly male. Weird. The audience was seriously creepy.

[depakid]

25. Best observation was that the crowd looked like something from Gary Larson's Far Side

They really did.

[Erin Elizabeth]

26. I'm white, I'm solidly middle-class and I'm from Texas

and *I* was terribly creeped out by them every moment it was on my TV, which admittedly wasn't the whole time, as I kept getting whole body shivers every time they were on.

*I* would have been slightly afraid had I been there. I would have felt very creeped out and in need of personal safety had I been there.

You are totally right--the whole spectacle has been creepy. I knew it would be utterly lacking in hope and optimism, because Republicans just don't "do" hope and optimism.

I knew they wouldn't have any answers, only sticking their heads in the sand and blame. It's what they do best.

But I really didn't anticipate the gross feeling the whole thing would have. I remember getting it from the RNC in 2004, but this one seemed to take it to new heights. Maybe the delegates there were trying desperately to make up for the fact that so many seats were empty or that the first part of their convention got pre-empted by a hurricane, I don't know. Maybe the general feeling in the republican party nowdays is just sheer desperation and it shows.

All I know is I needed to take a shower badly after seeing any of that. Anytime anything nasty was said, they all just bared their teeth in these sick shit-eating grins. Do they really think Americans are going to look at that and think "oh yes, we need more of THAT."

[a la izquierda]

29. I talked with a bunch of foreigners last night.

Mexicans, Brits, an Aussie and an Israeli. They all put it like this, though not in so many words: What the hell is wrong with your country? Why is there even a chance Obama won't win? Their mindframe is that Republicans have done nothing but harm both the US and the planet in the last 8 years. Many aren't proud of their own governments, but see the US as a great place that has taken the planet on its own personal drunken joyride.
I wanted to cry.

I'm happy I missed the speech. If I want to watch a catty, sarcastic, vile woman spew hatred for an hour, I'll watch 90210 reruns.

[MrModerate]

36. That's basically what I'm hearing from my Aussie friends here in . . .

Brisbane. This is one of the more conservative Aussie states (compared to NSW and Victoria, where Melbourne and Sydney are), but they're just baffled that the 'Licans have been allowed to hold power. The closest equivalent they had here was John Howard (tossed out of office about last year after 11 years in power), and who was Bush's best bud, but a moderate right-of-center guy (to the degree the terms are equivalent when applied to Australia) compared to America's drooling troglodytes.