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Extreme Makeover - America's Not Buying It
By Kevin Fobbs
August 2, 2004

Last week's Democratic National Convention in Boston appeared to be more like a combination of fictional work from Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz and America's Extreme Makeover television shows.

When you combine Hollywood stars, television scripting, Kerry in the NASA rabbit suit and Kennedy staring through the Looking Glass on the convention stage, you have to begin to wonder were they seeing what they hoped America should've seen. I think they believed that since the makeover craze has been sweeping through America's culture to bring mindless non-critical enjoyment to our nation's homes was not a stretch, why not try and work the same magic on the Democrat convention stage?

The only problem is that when Alice in Wonderland fell down the Rabbit Hole and slipped through the Looking Glass, she entered a fictional world where everything was crazy and mixed up from the way she knew it. Nothing was, as it seemed. Well in the real world of politics and history, despite Kerry's early week appearance in a NASA rabbit suit, the convention onlookers who make up the 10 percent undecided voters in America were not easily led through the Looking Glass.

If you were watching, you were asked to take part in a Michael Moore-like vision of reality and enter a world where nothing is, as it seems. You see, before being asked to fall willingly through the Glass into Wonderland, undecided voters were assured that their priorities, issues, and values were important to the men seeking the Democrat nomination for President and Vice President. They've been told over and over how important their values; not Whoopie Goldbergs' emotional tasteless rants were "part of the mainstream". They wanted to visit Oz with Dorothy and take whatever gold they could find on the streets of Hollywood, but then double back to Kansas, with Toto at their side on the convention stage.

So while not on the convention floor, they wanted Toto's owner's money, Dorothy or Whoopie's mouth, and Alice's rabbit hole isolation from reality, all while at the same time attempting to disenfranchise history. It would've been a neat trick if it had worked.

Well, the truth sprung from Alice's rabbit hole and last week, the Looking Glass shattered at the Democrat Boston Tea Party last week.

You see in their pursuit to convince America about the genuine nature of the makeover they tossed all of the values they believed, campaigned on, libeled the President with over the last three years into the unsettling waters of the Boston Harbor. Complete with candidate Sen. John Kerry sailing across the harbor with his former Vietnam War shipmates in tow. Were we fooled? I don't think so.

In order to have an extreme makeover you have to start from the premise that what you have is outdated, not working, does not appeal, in other words has absolutely no redeeming qualities.

The Democrat Convention first attempted to makeover their convention with toned down negative messages with a smile. But this effort was not going to convey hope and optimism to the American people, and the Democrats' cosmetic convention wasn't going to change any minds after months of negative campaigning and false political attacks. So when the negative was not going to completely work for them, they had to go for the makeover.

A makeover was needed when the campaign decided to embrace the notion of diversity at a convention but put open discussion of views other than the campaign's carefully scripted message on total lock down. A makeover was needed when the campaign touted a 30 year-old war record but carefully disavowed any connection, discussion, or notion that Kerry who accepted the nomination by "Reporting for Duty" seemed to have a 20-year-record that was missing in action.

Are extreme makeovers just fascinating? I have sat at my friends' home on many occasions and watched as the homeowners discussed how each room was carefully gutted, stripped of it's identity, robbed of the essence of what it was and completely discarded of any semblance of the character of what it was. The show's producers make certain you understand that this is all necessary in order to give the home, the human body; a new personality in order to create a new identity and a new comfort zone.

Well, America doesn't need a new comfort zone, a new identity, a new personality, or a new persona. No thank you, we believe the founding fathers got it right the first time.

America needs a candidate who is not trying to reinvent himself to please certain factions of America. America doesn't need a Botox policy that infuses a quick fix to tired ideas and non-traditional family values, because the candidate's liberal campaign think-tank mistakes tried and true age-proven beliefs with tired and sagging out of step ideology of left leaning liberal policy wonks.

If this heartland white-picket fence world is not good enough, if the strength of America's faith community is not strong enough, if the paint on the sides of our homes is not colorful enough, if the values of protecting life over the choice to murder partially born babies is not palpable enough, if keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance is not chic enough, then we in America who believe in the integrity of those views are just going to have to go without the chic Hollywood beliefs, and the extreme makeovers of our timeless traditions, and the new age look of Botox bodies.

Faith is not something, which has to be made over to fit some valueless comfort zone. Family values are not something that has to be changed in order to placate people who have disdain for those of us who have biblically-based values. Freedom is not something, which is won by being made over into curtailing our views of one America, not

Balkanized by race but rather strengthened by one identity. Our nation is not made up of African Americans or Irish Americans or German Americans, but rather, Americans. And if need be, American of whatever heritage we are or place we originate from.

We exist in America not to be made over or to accept candidates, campaigns or policies that attempt to water down who we are, try to neutralize the values we have been raised on, or to holloywood-ize our strength, by pretending that we live in a nation without a history, and values which can be put into a six minute fictionalized version of what a campaign stands for.

Well, on Thursday evening, the Democrat campaign wanted us to believe we should go along on the Wonderland Oz express as well and truly hoped we forgot the old and saw the new fictionalized extreme makeover.

Last week's attempts to make over fact with fiction didn't work with the American people. One night the American people were subjected to false attacks on veterans funding, which is up 40 percent under President Bush. That same night we heard baseless rhetoric when they falsely attacked Homeland Security funding, which has tripled under President Bush. Lastly we heard reality dismembered when again convention speeches falsely attacked the President's education funding which has seen the biggest increase since President Lyndon Johnson. Just ask the hundreds of thousands of urban parents who now know that their children have a future shot at the American Dream.

"Our nation's struggle is with the politics of fear and favoritism in our own time, in our own country. Our struggle, like so many others before, is with those who put their own narrow interest ahead of the public interest," remarked Democrat soothsayer Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention last week. Just as Sen. Kennedy attacked the President's faith-based initiative with such irrational rhetoric he, not the President has firmly embraced the politics of fear and special Hollywood-interest favoritism.

Hollywood's newest muckumentary master, Michael Moore's ideals were bandied about the convention. Of course he was not allowed access to the stage, remember any dissenting views in this Hollywood stage command performance were quickly silenced or bullied into submission.

Even Sen. Zell Miller picked up on the artful stagecraft performance at the convention when he spoke Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. Sen. Miller asked, "Where were the supporters of conservative family values, of those democrats who are against abortion, or of those who were moderate or conservative democrats..."? They like Sen. Miller are a people without a party. The Convention makeover rolled them over and rolled them out of the way and off of the convention stage.

The American people don't need or want a made over President. President Bush has led this country with strength and conviction. His leadership is steady and strong and is the primary reason today we are fighting terrorists in Baghdad and Kandahar instead of Boston and New York. No amount of Hollywood makeover magic will be an adequate substitute for reality and results.

20 years of history cannot be erased with 6-minutes of convention video magic, not even from a fact-challenged movie muckmaster magician like Michael Moore. President Bush has held to his conviction and his support of the troops, the defense of this nation and the support for our traditional family values regardless of the politics, and that is the kind of leader we need in today's world.

America just remember, Alice finally got away from the fiction of Wonderland and Dorothy woke up and she was back in Kansas after leaving Oz. Extreme makeovers are a fiction America can't afford to read or see. America should not run away from reality and results. Our future is too important for it to not matter. You can't run away from history. Extreme Makeover...America says no thank you.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.