Counterfeit Convention

So far it has been a political convention where the millionaire former mayor of New York assails "cosmopolitans" and the multi-millionaire former governor of Massachusetts castigates "eastern elites." So we should not have been surprised to hear the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska -- who loudly lobbied for the "Bridge to Nowhere" -- claim credit for striking that mark-up from the Congressional budget bill.

Kevin Drum:

[T]he speech's worst moment: that fact that Palin repeated her lie from Friday about standing up against the Bridge to Nowhere. There have been days and days of coverage thoroughly debunking this, showing beyond doubt that she was an enthusiastic supporter of the bridge and an enthusiastic supporter of the earmark, giving up only after the earmark was rescinded and Alaska was given the same amount of money to spend on other projects. She didn't turn down a thing. And yet she repeated the lie because she knows perfectly well that 30 million people will see the speech and only a couple million will read the fact check tomorrow. That's some straight talk for you.

NYT editorial:

[I]t was bizarre hearing the running mate of a 26-year veteran of Congress, a woman who was picked to placate the right-wing elite, mocking “the permanent political establishment in Washington.”

And we couldn’t imagine what Mitt Romney was thinking when he denounced “liberal Washington” and then, at the convention of the party that brought you unimpeded presidential spying, declared: “It’s time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!”

We've seen eight years of brazen hypocrisy from the Bush administration. Republicans apparently think we want four more of the same.