Like Hurricane GOP Full of Hot Air

   
 Interesting how, for the second Republican convention in a row, a hurricane threatened to drown out all the pompous windbags bent on further ravaging the middle class, while sheltering the privileged few.

 And appropriately enough, as the ponderous, slow-moving Hurricane Isaac made landfall in New Orleans, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took the stage and attempted to hog the spotlight.
 

 He spouted much about his own perceived accomplishments in the Garden State, but like his metaphorical meteorological counterpart a few hundred miles west, Christie was mostly full of hot air. For a while there, it appeared the governor's delusions of grandeur got the best of him, and he thought he was the guy running for president.

The result was that Americans got a good look at the arrogance, indifference and single-mindedness that define the Republican Party. Such disingenuousness across the board - tearing down the president and blaming him for the devastating mess their own party leader left after eight disastrous years in the White House.

 Little wonder George W. Bush and his puppet master Dick Cheney were nowhere to be found at the convention.

 Fact checkers are clear. Talk of President Barack Obama raiding Medicare is a joke. As many as 10 million jobs were created in the private sector and public sector through Obama's stimulus and bank bailout programs. And the Congress (including the unprecedentedly obstructionist House Republicans) is to blame for the drop in the U.S. credit rating, not the president.
 

 Really, all this reflects just what the Republican Party thinks of the American people. The party strategists clearly consider Americans a naive and shallow bunch - easily swayed by blatant lies packaged as convincing sound bites.
 

 Let's really hope and pray that Americans wake up and prove themselves smarter than all that come this November.

 Kevin McKinney

(The Press of Atlantic City, Voice of the People, Sept. 7, 2012)