Lies On Parade

How do I lie to thee? Let me count the ways. There were so many last night at the Republican National Convention—and I don’t mean just the usual convenient, half-apologetic, Read More

In Search of the RNC Cocktail Lounge

The Texas delegation, which in 2004 distinguished itself by wearing Band-Aids with inked-in hearts on them to mock John Kerry’s service to his country—in the cause of a man who went permanently AWOL from the Air National Guard—was wearing not only the plastic cowboy hats they always favor, but little, red-and-blue matching uniform tops yesterday. They sat together on the campaign floor, looking less like the pep squad at a high school basketball jamboree I’d initially thought than like a brilliant costuming idea thought up by Corky St. Clair. This Republican convention seems strangely down-at-the-mouth compared to the one in 2008, Read More

Alternate Roll Call

An exchange from last night in Tampa, where, after an eternity of keeping Mitt Romney at arm’s length, the G.O.P finally nominated him as its standard-bearer against Barack Obama. Read More

Security Theatre, Act II

We were drinking and playing pool with my cousin and her boyfriend at a friendly bikers’ bar called the Dirty Shame around midnight, when suddenly we noticed that outside, one of the roaming herds Read More

No Apology: Bad Book, Worst Premise

August 28, 2012 3:37 p.m. Tucked away in the RNC’s media swag bag, alongside a pack of complimentary CSX peppermint breath mints (“Feel that good, minty breath/ Like a freight train comin’…”) and a huge fashion shopper featuring a young faux-delegate male cover model designed to melt the heart of every Wide Stance Republican in town—is a copy of Mitt Romney’s campaign autobiography, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. Typical of its recent Republican kind, the volume is intellectually and grammatically (“British warships laid siege on Boston…”) sloppy, as well as pretentious, disingenuous, and self-referential. It is also filled with Read More

Isaac’s Left Turn

  August 27, 8:50 a.m. Here, there’s only a light rain and wind outside. But the local Fox channel is reporting that Tropical Storm Isaac is picking up power and headed for New Orleans, on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This will, of course, provide an amazing opportunity for President Obama. Will it be that—even as G.O.P. keynote speaker and Official Blowhard Christopher Christie denounces him for not understanding America, or not liking white people enough, or some such sin—the networks and the cable news will be breaking away to shots of the president, in his shirtsleeves, sternly rallying Read More

The Scene Is West

August 27, 12:40 a.m., 2012   Tampa is a blur tonight, a smear of soft rain and humidity and downtown lights that have transformed an essentially modern and no-nonsense city into something much more mysterious and romantic. Jack and I are staying in a terrific, high-ceilinged, one-story house in the Ybor City. The place was built as a shotgun shack, like so much else in the neighborhood. Ybor City was once a citadel of cigar rollers and cigar-box makers. The workers, mostly Cuban immigrants, became renowned for hiring readers to read to them from newspapers, novels, all sorts of great Read More

A Season in Hell, or A Brief Chronology of the Trip From Ybor City to the Republican National Convention

August 27, 4:55, 2012 10:00 a.m.   This is going to be great! I’m covering a convention with my long-time best friend and old political buddy, Jack Hitt. We have known each for so many years, and get along so well! It will probably be too difficult to get downtown in our rental car, so we resolve to use mass transit. I decide to bring along my rather-heavy laptop in its even-heavier leather case. Jack, weakling that he is, warns me that it might be difficult to haul around all day. I give him my best patronizing smile and tell him Read More