I generally never waste time listening to convention speeches because you can read them faster afterwards (or, increasingly in the age of the internet, before). But I did try to listen to Sarah Palin. (Read it here) I just got bored, although it was well enough delivered, I guess. Maybe because I've written speeches and can see the joints. Needless to say, there was nothing about immigration, affirmative action, the National Question - just war, oil, not raising taxes, bashing Democrats - the conventional stuff that Republican fundraisers can take to key constituencies. No-one would ever imagine that the Census Bureau has just projected American whites will be a minority in less than 40 years.

At least, no-one at the convention would ever imagine it. Others are imagining it with salivating malevolence. The Washington Post's Harold Meyerson wrote on September 3:

...the Republicans now more than ever are the white folks' party, the party that delays the advent of our multicultural future, the party of the American past. Republican conventions have long been bastions of de facto Caucasian exclusivity, but coming right after the diversity of Denver, this year's GOP convention is almost shockingly — un-Americanly — white.

"Un-Americanly"? So whites are not merely to be a minority, they are to be deprived even of the name of the country they founded, built up and were 90% of until 1960.

What, then, would define "American"? We can be sure Meyerson is ready to tell us. (Ask him).

We can also be sure that Sarah Palin's speechwriters - and who knows about Ms. Palin herself - would not listen.