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My Big Night
By Victor Navasky
Let others oooh and ah at Kennedy's bravery, the Clintons' professionalism, Obama's history-making acceptance speech. But let us not forget what conventions are really about, now that presidential candidates are virtually always determined in advance. Conventions are, as every serious student of politics knows, an excuse for partying. Herewith, then, as a public service, my unvarnished insider's account of a typical night on the town in Denver.
It is 9 p.m., and my goal is to attend the Slate Party -- the one party to which I have been invited -- at the well-known Tattered Sleeve bookstore, only a couple of miles from the Pepsi Center. I have not eaten all day and my plan is to gorge myself on what will undoubtedly be platters of barbecue, pigs-in-a-blanket, shrimp and other free Denver delicacies, washed down with local microbrew, and hobnob with my betters.
I have cleverly hooked up with my buddy Eric , who is always invited to all the best parties, and has rented his own car. I have asked Eric to be my "date" for the Slate party, to which he has not been invited (it must be B-list since it's held in a mere bookstore, well-known or otherwise), confident that he will reciprocate and ferry me around to his endless A-list shindigs,
(19) CommentsAugust 28, 2008
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National Security and the Liberal Left
By Victor Navasky
A couple of days ago, I ran into Jane Mayer, whose impressive new book, The Dark Side, chronicles the Bush Administration's lawlessness.
At a luncheon seminar, she made the interesting point that progressives should make an alliance with the military in re national security issues, because "Samantha Power is the only left-liberal who has staked out a national security policy." Somebody else at the table noted, "she's not there any more," (an oblique reference to her departure from Obama's council of advisors, as a result of her calling Hillary "a monster," in an overheated moment during the primaries.)
Actually Samantha is still there, or at least she is here, very much in evidence on the scene. Anyway, I have long felt that any anti-war candidate debating John McCain starts out at a rhetorical disadvantage. So when I heard about a Human Rights First reception honoring some retired generals and admirals, I ( who also, incidentally, am also a retired military man-- although I only rose to the rank of PFC), was curious to hear what they had to say.
(21) CommentsAugust 28, 2008
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A Kennedy Moment
By Victor Navasky
This morning it was announced that Ted Kennedy, despite his brain cancer, would be coming to the Democratic National Convention after all, and a short film will be shown in his honor.
Yesterday, the powers that be leaked the fact that for better or worse (see Katrina vanden Heuvel's important post on Biden's misguided contribution to US-Russian relations), Caroline Kennedy had been influential in the selection of Biden as Veep. On Wednesday, Ethel Kennedy is hosting a benefit for the Robert F Kennedy Memorial, "A reception celebrating 40 years of making a difference."
It would not, of course, be a Democratic convention without its Kennedy moment. It all started way back in 1956, you may recall, when Adlai Stevenson enlivened what might have been a dull convention by subcontracting the selection of Vice President to the delegates, whom he instructed to choose between Senator Estes Kefauver, and JFK.
(12) CommentsAugust 25, 2008
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Confessions of a Convention Junkie
By Victor Navasky
Okay, so I'm a convention junkie. I've been to every Democratic National Convention since 1956, and my view of what's happening in Denver, 2008 I confess, is warped by remembrance of conventions past.
Thus, while most of those roaming the Elitch Gardens "Welcome to Denver" Saturday night party (billed as "A Celebration With Altitude"), were buzzing about Obama's selection of Joe Biden for Veep, my thoughts went back to the Democratic Convention in Miami in 1972. That was the year that George McGovern designated the ill-fated Tom Eagleton as his running-mate (later replaced by Sarge Shriver after the shocking revelation that he had undergone shock therapy). But as not many remember, that was also the year that Endicott "Chub" Peabody, the former governor of Massachusetts, announced his campaign for the Vice Presidential nomination under the slogan, "Endicott Peabody, the number one man for the number two job!" When I asked Dick Tuck, who had a sort of underground reputation as the Kennedys' court jester, what I should know about Peabody he said, "He's the only man in Massachusetts history who has had four towns named after him: Endicott, Peabody, Marblehead and Athol."
This time around, not even Hillary campaigned for Vice President. But it nevertheless seems apparent that the only really spontaneous (in the sense of unplanned) moment will be on Hillary speech-night, when nobody knows what the diehard Hillary delegates will do, I think back to 1968 when I was covering the proceedings in Chicago for the New York Times Magazine, and I remember looking out the 18th-floor window of the Newsweek suite at the park across the street from the Hilton, where Allen Ginsberg, Jean Genet and others were working the crowd. One of the speakers interrupted his message (urging his listeners to "off the pigs") and shouted, "Everyone in the Hilton who agrees with us, blink your lights!," after which Newsweek's lights started blinking. I was standing next to Jim Ridgeway of the Village Voice, who turned to me and said, "It's a fucking revolution," at which point all non-Newsweek personnel were ordered to evacuate the premises.
(26) CommentsAugust 24, 2008
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