It's been a long week. The re-introduction of Bob Dole has taken its toll on me. It's a good thing they went to the trouble, though. I had the whole wrong idea about the guy. I thought he was in Congress for the last thirty years. It turns out he has been in Russell, Kansas recovering from a war wound until quite recently. Even Phil Gramm benefited from the re-introduction. Bob Dole had called him a bug that should be stepped on and squashed during the primary, but I saw Phil Gramm standing right beside Dole during the balloon drop without any apparent fear of being squashed. Maybe he didn't even recognize the re-introduced nominee.

The balloon drop, as Senator Dole had predicted, was weak. I think people will forgive and forget that pretty easily though. However, history will not be kind to Travis Tritt. His concluding "Sign of the Times" song was painful. The Republicans should consider excluding music from the next convention. It's not just that the music was bad, it's that excluding music will cut down on the odds of the Republican leadership dancing in public.

Watching this event has certainly made me question my sense of reality. It all looked so phony and stupid to me. But they appeared to have no regrets. At the end the stage was filled with people laughing, smiling and cheering. One of the Kemps gave birth up there and no one even seemed to notice.