Bad Omens as DNC Convention Opens!

By Alan Caruba

(Satire)

In ancient times, sages, seers, and shamans were consulted regarding what day would be most propitious for an event such as a wedding or a battle. I fear that the Democratic Party may have selected in inauspicious day—September 4—to open their 2012 national convention.

For example, on September 4, 470 AD, Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire was deposed when Odoacer proclaimed himself the King of Italy. The good old days when the empire stretched from Britannia to Constantinople were over. Not a good omen for the Democratic Party, stretching from California to New York State.

In 1666 it was a tough day in London as the Great Fire raged on. Fortunately, Charlotte only has to deal with the President’s 700-car motorcade.

In 1862 Confederate General Robert E. Lee took the Army of Northern Virginia north, commencing the Maryland Campaign. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the war eventually turned against the Confederacy, dragging on until surrender in 1865. I wish I had the white flag concession at the convention.

1870 was not a good year for Emperor Napoleon III of France. The Third Republic was declared after Charles Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon I, was deposed. He holds the distinction of having been elected president by popular vote in 1848 before declaring himself emperor in 1852. Would Obama declare himself emperor if he thought he could get away with it? You bet!

In more modern times, on September 4, 1957 Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, a Democrat, called out the National Guard on this day to prevent black students from enrolling in Little Rock’s segregated Central High School. A Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, sent in federal troops to uphold the 1954 Supreme Court school desegregation decision. In 1992, Bill Clinton, an Arkansas Governor and allegedly the first black President was elected.

On September 4, 1957, the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, a car that was so ugly nobody wanted to be seen driving it. It was a better day in 1998 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google!

Surely the Democratic Party could have hired some shamans to examine the entrails and bones of chickens to warn them against opening their convention on September 4th, but they were more likely distracted by all the polls and surveys indicating that while President Obama’s personal popularity was still relatively intact, the stats regarding his performance on the job were heading south faster than Lincoln’s Grand Old Army of the Republic.

From Romulus Augustulus to Barack Hussein Obama, the convention is likely to be remembered as the beginning of the end of Democratic Party control of Congress and the White House starting officially on January 20, 2013; the same day in 1980 that President Carter announced a U.S. boycott of the Olympics in Moscow after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan. For some strange reason, U.S. troops are still there.

Suffice to say, September 4 is replete with bad omens, not the least of which was the rain, a day or so earlier, that washed away the base of the 16-foot-high sand sculpture of Obama outside the convention hall in Charlotte.

© Alan Caruba, 2012