Wow. I’m playing requests now.

Somebody named “Anonymous” asked me to comment on last night’s GOP conventions speeches. Ok, here goes:

I think Fred Thompson is a great speaker. He certainly fired up the troops. I’m a big fan of his as an actor. But he is full of it: he says that Governor Palin has the democrats in a state of panic. Not at all. If anything she has instilled in the democrats a state of overconfidence. Somebody on Bill Maher the other night, after about his tenth joke about her, said “democrats mock her at their peril,” and I agree. She brings a lot to the table. But mock her is what they are doing. But it’s Thompson’s tired old song to blame the Democrats and their so-called “friends” in the media. It’s all meaningless and deceitful spin.

Honestly, is there anybody in this whole campaign with less credibility than Joe Lieberman? Frankly I don’t care what he has to say.

The things which interest me the most have nothing to do with Thompson or Lieberman, however. There are two things which interest me about last night: the way President Bush was nothing more than an embarrassing afterthought, and why they gave Rudy Giuliani the boot last night. Bush was supposed to deliver a speech on Monday but the republicans, wisely, cancelled Monday’s speeches because of Hurricane Gustav. This gave them the opportunity to shove the sitting president to the side and that’s exactly what they did. He was completely marginalized. He is a leper as far as the McCaine campaign is concerned. Rudy too, or so it would seem. But I think the reason Rudy got the boot and Fred was plugged in was because they are going after the South. They know they can’t win in New York but they are suddenly facing challenges in North Carolina and Virginia, and even Georgia. Rudy does little to help them down there, but good old Fred with his southern drawl and his bloodhound jowls does.

But what I am really really interested in is Sarah Palin’s speech tonight. She is going to bring the house down, no doubt about it. Yes, like Obama last week she is preaching to the choir. But that’s what conventions are. Despite some Republican grumbling, I continue to think picking her was a brilliant move. Not only does she firm up the base and maybe grab a few PUMAs (but not many), and not only does she have an incredible story (we vote for narrative nowadays, not qualifications) but she has, if nothing else, controlled the news cycle: What? The Democrats had a convention last week? 84,000 people in a stadium? 38 Million viewers? Are you sure? I forgot with all this tak of pregnancies and moose and Northern Exposure. To paraphrase a a great philosopher, “what bump?”

I will make this prediction: while her speech will not out draw the 38 million people who watched Obama’s acceptance speech, she will out draw McCain.