Sources and Methods
Girlrillas wear green (shantung)
Just when you thought, mes amis, that your blogstress had forgotten her promise to fill you in on the story of how she came to be in possession, a decade ago, of the double-super-secret-background speech delivered by Paul Weyrich, the paleo-Catholic architect of the religious right, to the super-duper-secret Council for National Policy, in she waltzes from a blitz of writing mind-numbing prose for hire to tell you this little tale.
The Council for National Policy (CNP) is a coalition of mostly well-heeled right-wingers -- a majority from the Christo-fascist portion of the winger faction, and the rest from the simply kleptocratic kamp. Because they are Very Important People set on taking over the country, they meet behind doors guarded beefy by men with curlique earpieces.
"They really shouldn't be allowed to get away with that," thought your blogstress, who hatched a plan based around her keen sense of fashion and issues with authoritarianism that would allow her to do what the bear did when he went over the proverbial mountain. Ms. magazine sponsored her reconnaissance mission.
The 1996 summer meeting of the CNP took place, a few days ahead of the Republican National Convention, at the Loews resort on Coronado Island, just over the bridge from the San Diego convention center where the party would gather to nominate Bob Dole as its presidential candidate.
The Loews is an opulent destination resort on one of the world's great pieces of Pacific real estate. Having done her homework, your écrivaine had a pretty good idea of whom she would find there, and what their oh-so-perfectly-done wives would look like.
And so she scoured her closet for a suit, left from her days in the publishing biz, that might be adapted to the kind of hyper-structured, lady-who-lunches sort of ensemble that a Betsy DeVos, for example, might favor. Ah yes, that emerald green silk number would do, with a few nips and tucks and a sterner set of shoulder pads.
Now, what to do for a blouse? Surely, the black turtleneck and ethnic-printed shawl that had once been the suit's standard accessories would hardly pass muster with this crowd. A visit to a discount fabric store that took in a lot of odds and ends from bridal manufacturers solved that. A piece of ivory shantung and matching covered buttons would yield the perfect little structured top. A pair of ivory silk sling-backs from a clothing outlet in Secaucus would round out the look. If she did her own nails, she could afford to have her hair coaxed into a hard-sprayed French twist in the hotel salon.
Early in her hotel stay, your cybertrix purloined a copy of the CNP's schedule of events. She would hold her fire, she decided, until the final night. In the days leading up to the climactic gala, your Webwench would hang around the lobby, blend in and listen.
At last, the big night arrived. Now, mind you, your net-tête did not have anything that even resembled the conference badges worn by the CNPers. She did not pretend to be anyone but herself. She simply wore the right clothes and walked with confidence, past the beefy men with the earpieces, into a cocktail reception on a patio with a spectacular view, where she stood among a throng surrounding Oliver North. She stayed at the cocktail reception just long enough to register as part of the scene, and then discreetly disappeared. And lurked.
When the doors opened to the ballroom where dinner had been served, and the wingers, decked in their finery, strolled out, your blogstress subtly found her way to the room, as if in pursuit of something accidentally left something behind. And, indeed something had been. Why, it was the text of Mr. Weyrich's secret speech, in which he condemned the leadership of the whole Republican Party, and all but damned then-Speaker Newt Gingrich to Hell. And up on a Web site it went.
Goes to show you what a few yards of silk and a half a can of hairspray can get a girl.
