RNC: 4 More Beers! 4 More Bears! 4 More Beers!

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Day 2 of the Republican National Convention. Or is it Day 3? I think I fell asleep there for a while. I had a strange dream too. People in cowboy hats and not-so-old ladies wearing old style beehive hairdos. People seemed to be wearing clown smiles and oversized ties. It was weird. Maybe that wasn't a dream. No, I think that really was the crowd at the RNC. It might have been a dream though. I can't be sure, I mean I was dozing. I learned a few things though regardless if it was real or some strange dreamscape. First, I learned that Laura Bush is a great actress. How she could praise her husbands last 8 years in the presidency. She talked about all the changes he's made. She started off with a real doozy! How he's revamped education! Thanks to our president more minorities than ever before are in school. How many is that Mrs. Bush? Is that good enough? She listed a couple of other great Changes he's made. Strange that she didn't mention the changes that he's brought to over 4,000 military families, or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have experienced Mr. Bush's brand of change. Next, I learned that Mr. Bush is a terrible actor. He looked tired and haggard. He could hardly muster up a smile for dear old Mom and Dad. They appeared to have difficulty too. But he should be tired and haggard after ushering in so much great change.

I also learned that we should have overwhelmingly supported Fred Thomson more. His grandfatherly tales provide safe-havens from reality. His soft but stern Granpappy voice with its long slow drawl helps us to forget that the world is changing. Why after listening to him long enough, I wanted nothing more than a tall, cool, glass of lemonade and to sit on the porch and hear more stories about the good old days. Too bad we won't be enjoying four more years of the perfect summer back in Mayberry. I also learned from Grandpa Fred that we for some reason are lucky to have a prospective V.P. who can field dress a moose. My, that was a good one. Fred just has a way of telling you a hilarious story that doesn't really make any sense, is completely irrelevant, yet undoubtedly teaches a valuable lesson. Like the one he whipped off about a bucket of water. It was so funny, you could actually see the moment, after he read it, when he actually got it himself. Now that is what we like to call a real humdinger! Another thing I learned, again from Grandpa Fred, was that John McCain for some reason betrayed the Green Bay Packers to the North Vietnamese. As a Chicago Bears fan, I appreciate learning this very much.

Something else I learned that really surprised me, was that Howdy Doody grew up, turned gray and changed his name to Joe Lieberman. He's not nearly as funny as he used to be though. Or at least his sense of humor has really changed, anyway. I think I might have also learned why Angelina Jolie doesn't speak to he father Jon Voight. However, in the great tradition of Ronald Reagan, Charleton Heston, and Grandpappy Fred, we mustn't judge manly actors too harshly. They might, believing that they are actually super heroes or cowboys, come down from the silver screen to save us all and ride off into the sunset.

I learned that Republicans are a funny bunch, and I don't mean their beehives and cowboy hats (those weren't as funny as they were disturbing). I mean their mirth. They were just so darned happy. They were laughing and dancing and swinging each other round and round, dosie-doh style, all the while a-hoopin' and a-hollerin', waving their cowboy hats or holdin' down their beehives. I appreciate their mirth, it is refreshing from the somber mood that has prevailed the RNC. But I wondered why are they so darned happy. I mean they just saw George W. Bush on the plasmatron jumboscreen. Didn't that remind them even slightly of the past eight years? They were dancing around and singing and laughing, having a grand old time – as if not one of them was in any way directly responsible for the criminal failures of the Bush presidency. That is weird. It must have been a dream.

-Peter J. Burns