This morning, coffee & schadenfreude -- as good as an Irish country breakfast

There is nothing so good with your morning coffee as a large serving of schadenfreude -- better even than the best apricot and almond Danish, as good as sitting down to a life affirming Irish country breakfast with the sweetest bacon in the world, fresh eggs and aromatic dark Indian tea. On the web I found a cry of tearful despair from a new age eco-activist who lamenting the cruel fate (Bush’s reelection) he is now sure is about to come to pass. His rage, his despair and deeply painful suffering are so raw and devastating, you just had to love it. He used the required hysterical rhetoric -- Neanderthals, arrogant warmongers, attributing everything but teenage acne to Dub’ya and the evil Republicans. The pessimistic leftist is Mr. Martin LeFevre, a New Zealand activist who writes on ecological and political topics. Google him if you want to share my wonderfully malicious enjoyment of his no doubt sincere distress and horror.

Eat your heart out pal. You made my week. Welcome back to the reality. A steady diet of New Age high fiber low reality day dreaming is not good for you.

The opening night of the Republican Convention was a great show. It set the context for the three days to follow. It opened with a Bush supporting liberal Democrat, actor Ron Silver throwing slabs of raw meet to the delegates and reminding us that we are in long difficult gritty war with evil and tyranny.

We are engaged in deadly combat with the clerico-fascists who are trying to highjack a major religious tradition (Islam) and ignite a bloody religious war across the world. The fact they are rejecting or perverting the religion often goes unnoticed. For example, the concept of a suicide bomber is very very dubious in light of Islamic teachings. The Talaiban style treatment of women is also very much out of touch with the actual Koranic teaching and long accepted commentaries. Women are instructed to dress modestly. The Pakistani Olympic Committee went to the nation’s leading Islamic scholars on the question of could a Pakistani woman could compete in swimming. The scholars ruled that it was permissible if she wore one of the new full body speedo suits which covered her from the ankles to the neck. The young woman went to Athens and swam for Pakistan. Some backwoods mullah then went nuts -- the equivalent of our sleazier self appointed television preachers -- and put a death threat on the girl. She’ll be seeking political asylum in the UK or the USA. The crazies are out of control. The message of the Koran and tradition is not the lunatic ravings of a few fanatics.

Speaking of crazies, the “bad” demonstrators as opposed to the normal people who marched on Sunday are going to have the streets pretty much to themselves for the next couple of days. They have already provoked the cops and in one case beaten a cop who is hospitalized in serious condition. They are being rude, crude and ugly. Today they are going to begin vandalism and other direct action.

My sympathy goes out to the NYPD who have to deal with them, to the New Yorkers and the delegates who will be insulted and molested by these bozo’s and self important thugs. It is not going to play well on television across the nation. Even more important, it is a big time turn off to the swing voters -- especially to younger and single women who will feel threatened by the boorish, irrational actions.

Check out the ABC poll released yesterday. It concurs with the other fresh polls that Bush is running even or ahead before the convention. The back up questions all show major gains for Bush. Also check out the just realized Zogby poll of Iowa voters. The most interesting things about it are that while on policy questions the undecided voters are not very supportive of Bush on the “personality” question they believe he is a much better leader, a far more likable guy and more in tune with them than Kerry. The other gem is that they don’t like Kerry and don’t feel he is trustworthy.

It appears to be the consensus of the experts that right now the Midwest has rolled and Bush is even or ahead every midwest state except Illinois. Pennsylvania and West Virginia are also even or tilting mildly pro Bush. Today Bush would carry the states he did in 2000 and plus a number of of the states Gore did. The race is not decided, but it is nice when your side has the lead.

The second night of the Republican convention was worth watching. California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger gave the best reaching out speech of the week. I found the very real echoes of his wife Maria’s late uncle’s Jack and Robert Kennedy in his gestures and the rhythm of his words uncanny but somehow natural. He made his rhetorical points with his index finger point out and his right arm punching into the audience, same with his open armed “join me” gesture. The old three beat Kennedy phrasing -- point 1, point 2, point 3 then hitting them with the conclusion and stepping back to give the big applause line plenty of room. Arnold has become a bit Irish by marriage. The text was not great oratory, but he delivered from the heart making it all American and all Arnold with a subtle but real Kennedy optimism and humor. The mild self mockery of the authentic Kennedy humor was there in his line, “Somebody told me they hoped I was a good a Governor as I was an actor. What an awful thing to say.” Most Kennedy want-to-be’s including but hardly limited to Senator John Kerry miss this authentic element. JFK was like a Prince of the Blood but he always opened by making jokes about himself, dropping his “lace curtain” status and coming down to earth with his audience by reminding them he knew his Grandfather Kennedy was a south Boston saloon keeper.

I thought the cameo appearance of the Bush twins at times funny, but proof that like most fathers, Dub’ya is indigent to his daughters. I doubt they helped much with adults, but they may have warmed younger people and carried on the glow of Arnold’s emotionally uplifting speech.

On Laura Bush’s speech, let me commend Dick Morris’s glowing review to you. He says it all and thinks it was perfection in its presenting her husband to other women voters.

The world will have watch a growing tragedy in Russia as the security forces and commandoes prepare to assault the middle school where local terrorists have seized two hundred students. You pray for the children and their parents knowing in the end President Putin will soon give the order for Russia best special forces soldiers to assault the school and try to save as many children as they can. The tragedy is clear and looming like great wave about to engulf a ship. Poor Russia suffers again. Even the best result will break their hearts and ours too. We can only thank God that He has thus far spared us from a similar tragedy.