Tuesday, July 27, 2004

The Bipartisan Deity It's not unusual for politicians to close their speeches with "God Bless America."  But lately, the original subjunctive verb has begun to reappear in the phrase. For example, at the Democratic Convention, after telling the audience "God Bless you" (as if somebody had sneezed), Al Gore concluded with, "and may God bless the United States." (somewhat ambiguous, since the official name of our southern neighbor is The United States of Mexico). Bush usually manages to out-God everyone by saying, "May God continue to bless America." But why the extra verbiage?  Has the Almighty been threatening to go on hiatus?  Or to forsake America and bestow his blessings elsewhere?  God forbid. 12:09:09 AM

Fleet Center Funkadelic For a while, the Democratic convention was getting fairly funky, with spirited renditions of "Proud Mary," "Johnny B. Goode," and a serviceable Sly and the Family Stone impersonator band doing "Everyday People." But then Bill Clinton had to go and ruin it all by bounding on stage accompanied by the dreaded Clinton/Gore campaign theme, "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow." With Gore making several barbed references to the 2000 election (e.g. "Let's make sure that the Supreme Court does not pick the next president, and that this president is not the one who picks the next Supreme Court."), maybe they should have had Paul McCartney do "Yesterday" instead. Well, at least Clinton didn't put on his shades and play the saxophone. 12:08:09 AM