I am in Tampa, and the weather is beautiful — a warm, light, tropical rain is falling.
Whoever decided to cancel one-fourth of the convention two days before it started should appear publicly and offer a rational defense of this decision. But I doubt they will. Because there is no rational explanation.
This is no Monday-morning quarterbacking. I said this decision was indefensible when it was first taken.
It is part of the undoing of the American claim to be the Home of the Brave. We are becoming the Home of the Wimp.
Two winters ago, the NFL cancelled a Philadelphia Eagles football game due to an impending snowstorm. Yes, a professional football game, heretofore always played in every type of weather, was cancelled, lest fans have to drive home while snow fell.
This is a nationwide trend. No more dodge ball lest a kid feel bad about being knocked out of the game.
Why couldn’t the Republicans’ convention go on as scheduled, and only be cancelled if and when a real hurricane rendered it impossible?
Has Katrina become to weather what Vietnam became to America fighting wars?
Or are we just becoming a weaker society, wherein the Republican party, instead of fighting the nanny state, becomes one itself?
Here in drizzly Tampa, as an American and as a Republican, I am embarrassed.