Wednesday Meltdown at the RNC

The speeches by Zell Miller and Dick Cheney may have been great for the koolaide drinking regulars but the Republicans had better hope the undecideds were watching The Weather Channel instead. William Saletan at Slate sums the evening up pretty well.

Tonight the Republicans had a chance to explain why they shouldn't be fired for these apparent screw-ups. Here's what Cheney said about the economic situation: "People are returning to work. Mortgage rates are low, and home ownership in this country is at an all-time high. The Bush tax cuts are working." But mortgage rates were low before Bush took office. Home ownership was already at an all-time high. And more than a million more people had jobs than have them today.

"In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat," Cheney said. What about the urgent, nukes-any-day threat to the United States that supposedly warranted our expense of so much blood and treasure? Cheney was silent.

"A senator can be wrong for 20 years without consequence to the nation," said Cheney. "But a president always casts the deciding vote." What America needs in this time of peril, he argued, is "a president we can count on to get it right."

You can't make the case against Bush more plainly than that.

And if Zell Miller's koolaide induced tirade on the podium wasn't enough he had a complete meltdown in an interview with Chris Matthews after his speech.