She Rips the Roof Off ...

OK, my blog is getting more political than I ever imagined it would ... but I just can't help it!

Emmanuel Dunnand, photojournalist with the AFP captured the above image, and ran this priceless live blog from the floor of the RNC:

11.10 pm. Reality television has become our politics.
11.06 pm. Both Huckabee and Palin have used the t-word. Of course, they are not criminally liable, as Bush is.
11.05 pm. Every time the camera pans to McCain's mother, she seems mortified. I don't really blame her. Can you imagine what she was thinking as a tiny special needs baby is passed from person to person for the cable news.
11.03 pm. However admirable it is to be a mayor, is it really necessary to drip contempt for people who work as community organizers? It seems to me that Palin doesn't quite have the stature to be putting down someone who has won millions of people's votes. This is a much more partisan speech than I was expecting.
11.00 pm Styrofoam pillars; and self-designed seals. And her lip curls.
10.58 pm. Now it's about big government - which Republicans have exploded in size. But no one can notice the actual record of the GOP in growing government and increasing debt. That would be too much accountability.
10.56 pm. Obama wants to reduce American power and prevent energy production. The mockery of Obama from Palin is striking. I don't recall anyone mocking McCain at the DNC.
10.53 pm. Drill, baby, drill! I may be just revealing that I'm out of touch, but I don't see why laying pipelines is now a core rallying cry of American conservatism.
10.50 pm. I have to say that the affect is of someone running for high school president.
10.49 pm. Piper is poking Trig in the eye!
10.48 pm. Ethics reform is her first policy proposal.
10.47 pm. She has this weird tick of scrunching up her face to make a forceful point. Kinda Tracy Flicky.
10.44 pm. Palin echoes Giuliani's attack on "cosmopolitan" elites. All the buzzwords are there. Elite. Elite. Elite. This is a culture war speech - and she is becoming a symbol of red America. This is what they have to do top win: divide and polarize again. We are half way through, by the way, and we have not heard a single policy proposal. But we have heard contempt for someone who works as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago.
10.40 pm. We've just seen a picture of a seven year old cradling and stroking the hair of a Down Syndrome infant. This, apparently, is relevant to deciding who should be the next vice-president of the United States.
10.39 pm. I'm just slack-jawed that, so far, the entire speech has been basically about her family. She seems as if she just won a reality show and is introducing her folks. And they have passed the baby now to four different people - including another child. Slack-jawed.
(Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.)