Mr. Sincerity

Remarkable.

That's just one of the words that come to mind listening to Mitt Romney give his primary victory speech tonight. Other words include ballsy, incredible, untrue, and insulting.

Taken on its own, it was a good political speech, full of promises and visions of a future of wonderfulness. Taken in context with everything else Romney has said this campaign, it was so full of contradictions and reversed positions, it's a wonder his tongue didn't tie itself into knots.

Literally within days of praising the so-called Ryan plan -- that grossly one-sided financial giveaway to large corporations and rich people -- which would, among other things, double student loan interest rates and cut food stamps, Romney tried to portray himself as the champion of families struggling on food stamps and under the weight of student debt.

This is par for the course for Romney. His whole political career has been rife with changed positions left and right to suit whatever audience he's addressing and whatever office he's seeking. It seems appropriate he's performing political gymnastics as the summer Olympic Games draw nearer.

He's not alone, of course. Just last week, former NY mayor and long-time putz Rudi Giuliani heartily endorsed Romney's candidacy. A couple months ago, Giuliani said of Romney that he'd never seen a politician take so many different sides of issues, changing his position "on a dime." Such rank political hypocrisy is why so many citizens are fed up with politics.

And that's exactly what the pols want. Get those decent people exasperated and convinced that nothing will ever change, and it never will. Once we give up and, through our own inaction, hand the reins over to the cynical politicians, we have given away the store.

Heart to heart

A heart transplant, while literally a change in heart, does not necessarily lead to the more common interpretation of that phrase.

Witness former Vice President Dick Cheney. Just weeks after being granted an extension of his own life through the organ donation of another, Cheney hypocritically attacked President Obama yesterday as being "an unmitigated disaster." His speech included criticism of the economy and many other policy concerns.

This is, of course, the same Vice President Cheney whose administration squandered the economic progress and budget surpluses of the Clinton administration; engaged in two wars on the country's credit card and left office with no end in sight for either of them; granted an expensive extension of prescription drug benefits to seniors, again without paying for it; declared that "deficits don't matter"; outed a CIA operative, endangering the lives of the agent, her family, and countless contacts around the world, solely for political purposes; and was the first administration in American history to take pride in torturing of prisoners. This is the new point man for the Republicans?

Over the years, I have had no overwhelming problems with the Republican party in general. I've voted for some Republicans on occasion. I've run my own businesses and had a major role in running others. I understand the appeal of the Republican's nod to lower taxes and reduced regulations.

But that traditional nod is now more of a nod and a wink; the Republican party is no longer a group of small town business people, the type of folks who populate local chambers of commerce. It is the party of the Chamber of Commerce, the national lobbying body for large corporations and the moneyed interests they represent. It has become the political arm of the 1%.

It amazes me so many miss how out there the Republican party has become. Forget the true crazies, like Congressman Alan West, who see Communists wherever Democrats loom; nut jobs do not a party define, even if their party does nothing to separate itself from their ravings. But when the Republican party in general starts to act like its most fringe elements, the entire organization loses credibility. That this coming presidential election could be close is both hard to believe and scary.