John the funny Mavrick

Before I start, I need to tell you two autobiographical anecdotes. If I understood one thing during this campaign, it is that it has to be about the biography of the candidates or their partners or any other people providing they allow to avoid addressing real issues. I don't have a video showing you my life with tear-pulling music playing in the background, but I can tell you a few anecdotes about my theater experience so that you understand what happened yesterday during John's acceptance speech.

There is kind of a tradition in theater to play tricks on your fellow actors at the last performance. It can be quite difficult to handle on the spur of the moment, but it is funny once you have passed -- more or less successfully -- the hurdle. For example, as I was playing a character who at some point unfolds a piece of paper where I was supposed to have written down a few notes to remember, my friends had replaced the paper I usually unfolded with one filled with obscenities about one colleague we did not like who was in the audience. In another play, my partner Yves and I were now and then having a drink of fake whiskey. For the last performance, our director Fred had replaced the fake whiskey with real whiskey. You imagine our reaction at the first drink we had.

Well, last night, John gave his acceptance speech, and some funny staffer had filled his speech with blunders and jokes that John apparently did not even notice as he was uttering them.

At the beginning of his speech, there was the only mention of the current President -- he had apparently forgotten his name since he referred to him only by his title -- in the following terms: "I'm grateful to the president of the United States for leading us in these dark days following the worst attack in American history."
In light of the rest of his speech, which was at times rather damning to the present administration and the Republican party he is supposed to represent, he obviously meant to say "the president of the United States for leading us to these dark days following the worst attack in American history."

A few minutes later, he said that his opponent and himself share something: "We're dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed by our creator with inalienable rights. No country -- no country ever had a greater cause than that." That's something we hear a lot these days, the idea that only in the United States of America can individuals be equal and free. They can't possible mean that. They can't possibly be narrow-minded enough to believe that only in America are people free and equal. They can't truly believe the US of A is the only democracy around, that it is "the greatest nation in the history of the earth." They can't truly have forgotten that fifty years ago, a huge part of the American population were treated as sub-humans.
That must have been a typo in the speech too.

He said that Sarah "has worked with her hands and nose." That was a funny one, although we did not really understand what he meant. In fact, he had paused at the wrong place and the sentence was "she's worked with her hands and knows what it's like to worry about mortgage payments."

Oh, and just like everybody else in St Paul, Minnesota this week, he had his Bushian "Mission accomplished!" moment: "Thanks to the leadership of a brilliant general, David Petraeus, and the brave men and women he has the honor to command, that strategy succeeded, and it rescued us from a defeat that would have demoralized our military, risked a wider war, and threatened the security of all Americans." That was funny too. It would be truly hilarious if in fact the military were not demoralized and the security of Americans were not threatened, but hey, John is not a professional comedian.

He talked about health care. Well, actually he talked about how he understood Barack's plan for health care: "His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor."
Okay, so that has to be the funniest part of his speech. So John, let me play the arrogant French here and lecture you a little bit about what you call "a big government" can do for your health. You see, last time I went to my doctor's, I did not see any bureaucrat standing between him and I. I did not check under the desk, but I am pretty sure that's not what you call a bureaucrat, right? No, in fact the bureaucrat in a government-run health care system is far away from the doctor's office, at the other end of a telecommunication line and this is what happens: I go to the doctor's or the pharmacist's, and when the doctor or the pharmacist are done with me, I give them a small electronic card, they put that card in a machine and the government pays for my visit or my medicine. And that's it.
So when you say "All you've ever asked of your government is to stand on your side and not in your way," John, well that's what a big government can do for you. It can stand by your side and make sure you do no go bankrupt because you are sick.
Oh, and talking about big government... When you refer to former exemplar presidents as models, like "Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan," just a piece of advice, John, when you mention Roosevelt, don't forget the first name of the one you mean, because one of the Roosevelts -- arguably the most popular one, and the most popular of all Presidents -- was the epitome of big government.

John said he wants to "empower parents with choice." Yes, people, John is pro-choice.
Oops, sorry, I got carried away, he was talking about schools. He wants to empower parents at school. He wants "schools to answer to parents and students." Well, I can tell he did not meet some of the parents I met as a teacher.
This was a running joke in his speech, by the way, since later he encouraged people to become teachers: "My friends, if you find faults with our country, make it a better one [...] Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read."

And here was the most hilarious moment of the convention, and I swear I am not inventing anything. I watched the speech on CNN. Just after John had exhorted the crowd to "teach an illiterate adult to read," a camera showed a sign in the crowd that said "John the Mavrick." How appropriate.

The funniest running joke that his speechwriters pulled on him, though, is the recurrent call to vote for Barack: "Change is coming! Change is coming!" he incessantly repeated.