Bewitched

By Zamboni

We cats would like to take issue with a theme that the Republicans — with the willing assistance of the mesmerized "liberal" media — have successfully pushed for close to a week.

It's the one that goes like this: "Sarah Palin gave a great speech."

We beg to differ. It was not a great speech. As Hendrik Hertzberg points out in the latest issue of The New Yorker, it wasn't even her speech. "According to Time," Mr. Hertzberg reported, "Palin’s acceptance address was drafted — by a former Bush White House speechwriter — before she was chosen and then retailored to fit her."

A hastily retrofitted speech for a hastily chosen nominee. But on top of that, it was sarcastic, sneering and ugly — a typical Karl Rove tactic in a Presidential year that begs for politics on a higher plane.

We cats find it so interesting that the Republicans mock Senator Obama for his soaring rhetoric. But at least his speeches are soaring. Theirs — as evidenced by every major address at the Republican convention save Senator McCain's — are divisive and mean-spirited. (And chock-full of racial code — especially that little shot that Governor Palin's enabler took at community organizers. Lee Atwater would be proud, if he hadn't already died of brain cancer.)

But Republicans — and their willing accomplices in the media, led by Tom Brokaw — deem the Palin speech a grand success because, in Mr. Hertzberg's words, it was "accompanied by perky smiles and wrinklings of the nose." (Is Samantha Stephens running for Vice President?)

God knows what havoc a McCain-Palin Administration would wreak upon the nation and the world. Never you mind. The important thing is that, by gum, those Rove guys still know how to make something work politically.

We cats HISS and SNARL at Republican reprobates whose sense of patriotism is so clouded by their lust for power. And we dump our dirty litter boxes on the desk chairs of the alleged "journalists" who willingly parrot the Republican party line.

But we reserve judgment on the rest of the election for the moment — switching our tails and watching with wary eyes.

The Obama-Biden campaign is the best-funded and -organized campaign in history, and every day it reminds us the country is facing the worst economic problems since The Great Depression. The question is, will voters finally cast ballots that reflect their own self-interest, as individuals and a nation? Or will they once again be swayed by surface appearances and ugly rhetoric?

Two months to go. We'll see.