Former NY Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's speech to the Republican National Convention [Text from NYTimes, CNN, NPR audio] last night was one of the most disturbing pieces of political theater I've ever seen. It was vicious, maudlin, manipulative, and immensely effective.

His paeans to bipartisanship were backhanded slaps at Democrats. His use of the September 11 attacks to highlight the President's 'courage' and 'love' and common touch were precisely what everyone feared about the RNC's decision to be in NY: using the shock and horror of that catastrophe, and the unity of fear and fellowship of rage and community of sympathy and mutual aid that it created, to gloss over the ways in which the administration has bungled even the decent things they've attempted. [For more on this, I recommend Arthur Silber's comments on Juan Cole] I was reminded of the line from Man of La Mancha about the"sentimentality of truly brutal men." His invocation of decisiveness and courage and constancy and strength ignored the fundamental question of intelligent effectiveness. His direct attacks on Kerry were barely worthy of Rush Limbaugh's shock-jock punditry. I could be wrong, but I swear his reference"It would not be the first time that John Kerry changed his mind about matters of war and peace" was a thinly veiled attack on Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activism.

My nominee for low irony, though, came towards the end:

But the reasons for removing Saddam Hussein were based on issues even broader than just the presence of weapons of mass destruction. To liberate people, to give them a chance for accountable, decent government and to rid the world of a pillar of support for global terrorism is nothing to be defensive about. It’s something for which all those involved from President Bush to the brave men of our armed forces should be proud.

Well, he's right. So, it was an humanitarian intervention from the start? And saying 'presence' of WMD reinforces the false perception that any were found. And what he's not saying is that 'a chance' is actually 'a very slim chance, given our lack of foresight and commitment'. What he's not saying is that 'a pillar of support for global terrorism' was a marginal figure, at best, with regards to terrorism, and a paper tiger which we overwhelmingly defeated twice. He went on,

The hatred and the anger in the Middle East arises from the lack of accountable governments. Rather than trying to grant more freedom, or create more income, or improve education and basic health care, these governments deflect their own failures by pointing to America and to Israel and to other external scapegoats.

That is precisely what the RNC is doing by having the convention where and when it is, by highlighting otherwise marginal figures like Giuliani and McCain (and my own moderate Republican governor, Linda Lingle), by touting our ability to bomb as if it were some sort of policy success, by hyping fear through visa denials and terror alerts, leaked information and excessive classification.

It's hard to describe exactly how I felt at the end of Giuliani's speech. This was raw politics, low politics, the politics of muscle and gut. I felt raw, low, mildly nauseous. I recognize the rhetorical effectiveness of what he did, the classic propaganda strategies of taking good things and real facts and making connections that aren't really there to gloss over the bad things and real facts that complicate the situation. He never lied, directly or clearly, but there was very little truth there, either.

The other featured speaker of the night was John McCain, and I highly recommend Tim Burke's rebuke to the Honorable Senator.