An Exercise in Annoyance--Palin's Acceptance Speech

I didn't exactly have high hopes for her acceptance speech--one I watched out of sheer curiosity, I might add--but Palin still managed to annoy the hell out of me.

Yeah, I knew we could expect the same soft-pedaled patriotic crap about how Republicans are there for all Americans, how they want to give government back to the people, and how John McCain is more patriotic than you.

What I didn't see coming was the sarcastic and condescending tone towards Barack Obama. While there was plenty of disagreement regarding John McCain's atrocious platform during the DNC, there was also plenty of respect for the man. Joe Biden even called the man a "dear friend."

Flash-forward to the RNC, and we get jabs at Obama's "elitism," a painful, faux-clever stab at how Palin's stint as mayor was different from Obama's as a community organizer because her job "had responsibilities," and, most annoying of all, a rekindling of Obama's woefully misunderstood "bitter" comments!

While these cheap and misleading attacks had me pulling my hair out, the key weakness of Palin's speech was its hypocrisy. Along with the aforementioned attacks, Palin followed the cliche GOP platform of attacking Obama's skillz as a speaker and demanding more substance from the man. Strange, though, how Obama's acceptance speech was dominated by substance and razor-sharp policy, while Palin's resorted to the same hollow pronouncements of how McCain is "the candidate for you!" while lacking ANY of the substance Obama allegedly needs.

So all in all, a cheap, flimsy, annoying evening, all from the modern-day Tracy Flick of politics. Hooray!