Boy let me tell you, CNN is making me sick. Remember when, in the Democratic convention, they let Republican bigwigs have a huge amount of airtime after Democratic speeches? CNN is not doing the reverse now in the RNC. They did, technically, give air time after Cheney’s speech to a Democrat–but it was to turncoat Democrat Zell Miller, who gave the Republican keynote address, and is as much a Democrat as Bush is. After a long Zell Miller interview, and after more of their in-house coverage, finally they gave “a few moments” to a Kerry adviser, but that was it. Wolf Blitzer, on air, actually tried to excuse their paltry make-up interview with the Kerry advisor by directly mentioning that they had given ultraconservative Ralph Reed air time after Edwards’ address at the DNC–but as I recall, Reed was given the slot immediately after the speech, and it was a hell of a lot longer than they gave the Democrat tonight.

One thing is for certain, though: if people don’t like stark, over-the-top attacks, then Zell Miller did not help Bush at all. Many are comparing his speech to the “frightening” address by Pat Buchanan in 1992 that helped get Bill Clinton elected. Miller claimed that Kerry opposed a host of weapons systems, a claim long since proved to be false, but Miller used it as a way to beat Kerry about the head (ignoring the fact that it was Dick Cheney, then defense secretary under the first President Bush, who actually cut most of those systems). He made outrageous accusations, such as:

Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide. John Kerry, who says he doesn’t like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security. That’s the most dangerous outsourcing of all. This politician wants to be leader of the free world. Free for how long?

Pundits are already noting that the Republicans are all but giving up on winning the undecided voters, and are starkly appealing to their base while going for an all-out, balls-to-the-wall attack on John Kerry. And many believe that this is chiefly because they’ll have little else to run on: the 1,000th U.S. soldier will die in Iraq in mid-September (the casualty rate has been climbing steadily since the “handover”), and the economic report coming out in a few days is reported to be one that follows the recent trends–in other words, it will probably be bad news. With Iraq and the economy being the top key issues in this election, and with a majority of Americans seeing the country going in the wrong direction, the only hope of the Bush campaign is to smear, smear and smear some more, hoping to both galvanize their base and, they hope, turn off some of those undecideds from voting for anyone.

In the meantime, news events threaten to take away some steam from Bush’s moment in the sun: charges have been dropped against Kobe Bryant today, and Hurricane Frances is scheduled to slam into an already weather-beaten Florida this weekend, not to mention the hostage crisis in Russia.

In addition to all that, Bush may have his own Vietnam woes rekindled soon. As the SBV lies against Kerry continue to be discredited as political smear-campaign attacks, new information about Bush and his national guard days are coming to light.

One of them is Ben Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Texas, who has admitted in the past to using his political influence to get Bush into the Texas Air National Guard, at the request of the Bush family. Barnes will appear on 60 Minutes and reportedly will give details about how he got Bush into a champagne unit, filled with the sons of the rich and powerful, which was slated never to go to Vietnam.

Another breaking story is that of Linda Allison, widow of James Allison, former close confidant of the Bush family. According to Linda Allison, W. Bush was becoming such an embarrassment to the Bush family that they asked her late husband to take Dubya under their wing and have him assigned to the Blount campaign in Alabama, which Allison managed.

“The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy’s wing,” Allison’s widow, Linda, told me. “And Jimmy said, ‘Sure.’ He was so loyal.”

…

Allison’s account corroborates a Washington Post investigation in February that found no credible witnesses to the service in the Alabama National Guard that Bush maintains he performed, despite a lack of documentary evidence. Asked if she’d ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison said: “Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way.” Allison also confirmed previously published accounts that Bush often showed up in the Blount campaign offices around noon, boasting about how much alcohol he had consumed the night before. (Bush has admitted that he was a heavy drinker in those years, but he has refused to say whether he also used drugs).

“After about a month I asked Jimmy what was Georgie’s job, because I couldn’t figure it out. I never saw him do anything. He told me it basically consisted of him contacting people who were impressed by his name and asking for contributions and support,” Allison said.

The Salon article goes on to lay out the relationship between the Allisons and the Bushes, and describes some of Dubya’s behavior at the time.

At the very least, this will be an embarrassment to Bush, a distraction from his message, and will bring into sharp contrast the records of Bush and Kerry–even if you believe the Swift Boat Vet lies, you still have to admit that Kerry was in combat in Vietnam, and that Dubya was using family ties to stay safe in Texas while boozing it up.

Alan Keyes, meanwhile, has managed to stay in the spotlight, by calling Vice President Cheney’s daughter a “selfish hedonist.” In a recent interview, he stated that “If we embrace homosexuality as a proper basis for marriage, we are saying that it’s possible to have a marriage state that in principle excludes procreation and is based simply on the premise of selfish hedonism.”

When asked if that applied to Linda Cheney, Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter, he replied, “Of course she is. That goes by definition. Of course she is.” He later backed up his remarks by saying, “Dick Cheney may or many not like to hear the truth, but it can be spoken.” And later, “I have said that if you are actively engaging in homosexual relations, those relations are about selfish hedonism. If my daughter were a lesbian, I’d look at her and say, `That is a relationship that is based on selfish hedonism.’ I would also tell my daughter that it’s a sin, and she needs to pray to the Lord God to help her to deal with that sin.”

In the “Oh Really?” department, John McCain already concedes losing Illinois. But Keyes is only helping Democrats by having a national platform to show his unadulterated right-wing views. Keep on talking, Alan.

And finally, no one, not even staunch conservatives, felt that the Bush twins did any favors for their daddy when they addressed the convention yesterday. Bill Kristol, Morton Kondracke, and Fred Barnes all felt that the twins did not belong on the podium. Many have described the twins as looking like “ditzes.”

So far, the Republican lineup has not been all that impressive.