The Lost World of CPAC

“A LOT OF HOT AIR”

by OPOVV, ©2014

(Mar. 11, 2014) — One summer in my college days, I had a job that, as far as I could tell (and I worked there for three months), all they did was to schedule meetings, I kid you not. Every Monday morning we’d meet to discuss which coffee shop we be meeting to schedule the next meeting, the “Big Meeting.” And so on Tuesday or Wednesday we find ourselves (six of us) scheduling the next meeting: will we have it on Thursday or Friday; morning or afternoon; donuts or something else and, if donuts, crème-filled or plain; who wants an éclair?

Forget the product that we were supposed to sell. Ignore the outside world: we plan, think, live for meetings, a complete waste of time, which I expressed to my boss one day. I said, “Uh, excuse me, please, but I’m finding it somewhat difficult to get enthused about all of these meetings. Out of a 40-hour work week, we spend half of that at these stupid meetings where all that’s discussed is who’s turn it is to go out and get the donuts.” His reply was, “Son, I’m sorry, but you just aren’t part of the team; we’ll have to let you go.” “Aren’t we supposed to have meeting about that?” were my last words to him.

This CPAC convention that just ended reminded me of all of those wasteful meetings that I was forced to endure: a lot of hot air but no substance. I was listening for certain key words and I was disappointed, but then I thought about it some more and realized that I was wrong to expect anything other than what we got: a bunch of hot air. I lent my ears to hear the words “Birth Certificate, “ineligible,” and “deport,” but I heard not, and neither did anyone else.

Or, sure, we heard about getting rid of Obamacare, but we didn’t hear a peep about getting rid of the Federal Reserve. We’d hear a few words of getting rid of the IRS (by a potential ineligible presidential candidate), but not even a whisper of deporting illegal immigrants. As I said, what a colossal waste of time for those whose job it was to be there. I mean, if that was the total sum of their production, of their efforts, then they must have felt as I did about that summer job years ago: what the heck am I doing?

[As a side note, my summer wasn’t completely wasted. I became acquainted with a retired federal judge who hired me to be his writer for an Ivy League school paper. I’d write the articles (he paid me $25 each), he’d sign his name and they would get published in the school’s paper.]

What conclusions can one make of all the hot air that came out of the CPAC convention? Well, not much, I’d have to say. Same old faces and the same pabulum. But that was the point, wasn’t it? It would be like televising those meetings that I went to years ago; “Who ordered the chocolate covered? Did someone order root beer?”

So we shouldn’t feel disappointed or cheated. What we saw was what we got, and all of those closed-door sessions that we missed were just like what we saw on the idiot box: a play put on to fool the gullible that we still have choices. Yes, the illegal immigrants and the Federal Reserve are alive and well, and will continue to remain intact. The status quo prevailed, once again. Thanks be to Heaven, we can now all sleep in peace, knowing that everything will be as messed-up as it was before. I wonder how many donuts were consumed?

OPOVV