Republicans Anonymous

The Florida Republican Party is refusing to make public the names of the delegates to the national convention, citing privacy concerns (I suspect anti-Cuban nutjobs). Someone needs to make clear to them the difference between private and public, and a convention that votes on the top candidates and platform of a political party is not private. One hint: the US taxpayers will be paying millions of dollars. This is the same lack of understanding of the distinction between public and private shown by the requirement that members of the general public sign a semi-literate loyalty oath to George Bush in order to enter an event with Dick Cheney. On that, I’ve been waiting in vain for a follow-up story to tell whether signatures were checked against id’s, or if an unusual number of attendees shared the name Michael Mouse. Link (which may get past the annoying registration barrier).

A day after Memphis’s city council chairman refused to let an Iraqi delegation enter city hall to learn about democracy and civil rights, two of the delegates were the victims of armed robbery in the city. So really, they just need that visit to Graceland, and to talk to the supporter of eugenics about to become the Republican candidate for Congress in Tennessee’s 8th district, and they’ll have learned everything we have to teach them.