Sarah Barracuda

Well, Sarah, you did it. You brilliantly and effectively tore into Obama. I'm glad that hope-mongering bi-racial child of a single mother got what was coming to him. You've shown all of the wildly successful Republicans (positively glowing in their shimmering Hall of the White People) that you can fight dirty. A "pitbull with lipstick," as you so eloquently put it. My lady, you fit right in.

Sadly, for you, you've forgotten why the American people fall in love.

You see, people don't fall in love with looks or personality. They don't fall in love with intellect or temperament, eloquence or ideas. People fall in love with how they feel when they're with you.

And Sarah, you don't make me feel so good.

You give me that same queasy, tremulous flutter in my stomach that I felt when George W. Bush destroyed John McCain in 2000 over his military record. You give me that same sick, hopeless feeling I had when I found out Bill Clinton lied about letting Monica suck him off. You give me that same, fleeting pleasure I feel whenever the other teams loses, or the big hitter strikes out, or the movie I was looking forward to turns out to be terrible.

Not once tonight did you or your party propose a single idea that would help Jessie and I pay our bills every month. Not once did your party or its cast of vanquished ideologues (Romney, Thompson, Guiliani) propose just exactly how you intend to undo the damage your party has done in the past 8 years. I truly wish that Republicans were as good at running America as they are at attacking Democrats. Maybe then they'd have a record and a platform to run on.

No, Sarah, I don't feel good when I listen to you. I don't feel good when I listen to the talking heads turn their words to you. I don't feel more hopeful or more positive or remotely convinced that the Republicans will do anything but what they have always done: Talk a big game, win, and accomplish nothing. In fact, you seemed to delight in ravaging a story not unlike your own, a story about an individual who came from little and accomplished much despite every influence to the contrary.

Your speech, in the end, betrays other Americans just like you. It betrays yourself. It is more of the same. And Jessie and I can't afford more of the same. It's just too expensive.

So, politicians of all stripes, I ask only this of you: Level the playing field as much as humanly possible, and then kick the ball and leave the rest to me. A third of my paycheck went to G.W. Bush, so don't pretend to be the party of low taxes. Blacks and Hispanics are going to one day supersede whites, so enjoy your all-white conventions while they last. All I really want from you is Hope. Hope that this nation can rise above its differences and remain that shining beacon I learned about in school, the place I am proud to call my home, the country that I thank God for every time I return from visiting another nation.

Give me Hope, Sarah. John. Barack. Joe.

And then get out of my way.

-Martin