Posts

Showing posts from July 27, 2004
Important newspaper discovers AddieStan.com ...in which your blogstress finds herself quoted in The Wall Street Journal .
This blog s#cks!* (Just ask the DNC) NOTE: Brackets [such as these] denote words that were not actually spoken, but perhaps should have been. BOSTON--As promised, your intrepid blogger paid a little visit on the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) Press Gallery on the matter of her revoked blogger credentials. You’ll recall that a very small handful of bloggers who received letters granting them credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention experienced the misfortune of having those credentials mysteriously revoked for reasons that seem dubious, at best. ( E.g. , the convention folks suddenly realized that they didn’t have enough space for us.) The others I know of who were so disrespected are righties; what liberal, feminist moi did to be similarly decommissioned was a mystery to me. So I went to find out. The party giveth, and the party taketh away At the press gallery, I presented the letter I had initially received, the one I was to bring to the gallery...
Image
Dramaturgy (Enhancing the script) Ron Reagan (r) on the MSNBC set outside Fanueil Hall for a live airing of "Hardball". photo © 2004 Adele M. Stan BOSTON--As predictable as flung mud, every four years the grousing about the scriptedness of the conventions rains down upon us--so much so that it's become part of the metascript itself. One recalls that in 1996, Ted Koppel packed up early at the Republican National Convention, leaving San Diego in a huff over the banal non-newsiness of it. (Yesterday, however, saw Mr. Koppel briskly walking the halls of the Fleet Center during the prime-time hours.) But there's scripted, and there's scripted. On Sunday night, while foraging for food in the area of Quincy Market, I stumbled upon the outdoor set for Chris Matthews's MSNBC show "Hardball." Standing around the open-sided, tented set were a few hundred people, mostly young men, holding "Kerry/Edwards" signs. As I approached the gat...
Hope? BOSTON--Since he left office, when Bill Clinton speaks, I feel myself start to smile at the same time that I experience a profound sense of sadness. For after all that was the Clinton presidency, how did it come to this? (This being complete marginalization of the Democratic Party after yielding eight pretty prosperous during its last turn in the White House.) Clinton remains a maddening figure to me; much like a family member with a major character defect whom you just can't help loving too much. (Yeah, I'm already feeling the results of missing this week's therapy appointment.) Bill gave a good speech last night; he always does. (I had already seen the preview of the "Send me" riff in his post-primary address to a Democratic fundraising dinner in Washington last March.) His best line: "Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values..." He also did a great job explaining the US economic relationship with China and Japan, asking how can the ...