DNC news, or lack thereof

[lookout123]

the link is to an article describing the reduced role of the big 3 networks in the convention, but in the middle i found some interesting quotes (read below). this sounds to me like kerry is limiting reporters' access to him and the major players this week; which i think has been one of the things that the dems have called bush out over the last couple of years.

anyway...

We'd always like to have more time,'' said Mr. Brokaw, for whom these will be the last conventions as NBC anchor, as he is leaving his post after the election. "On the other hand, can I go and make a strong editorial argument for the necessity of having more time? These conventions are so managed, and over-managed.'' Mr. Brokaw said Senator John Kerry's campaign staff was trying to control what the networks did to an unusual degree.

"Any entrepreneurship that we show on booking guests or unilaterally calling up people and trying to get them to come to our booth, we get a call 15 minutes later from the Kerry operation saying 'No, no, that's not part of our booking procedure,' '' Mr. Brokaw said. "There is a politburo running this convention.'' (Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kerry, said the campaign's booking operation was set up to facilitate interviews, not restrict them.)

The campaign went so far as to try to limit the kind of questions Mr. Brokaw and Mr. Rather were to ask Mr. Kerry here on Wednesday afternoon. The staff wanted the questions to concern Mr. Kerry's expectations for the convention, nothing more, according to people at both networks. It was the sort of terms-setting that few have dared to ask of network anchors. The request was swiftly denied.

Mr. Kerry did not help matters when he failed to appear until nearly an hour before the evening newscasts, leaving the anchors to wait at Faneuil Hall with increasing anxiety. (Mr. Kerry was not running late in returning from a campaign stop but rather from his vacation home in Nantucket.)

"What that said to me was that either they don't have their stuff together, or he's ultimately responsible, or he just took it lightly,'' Mr. Rather complained

article

[lookout123]

i know there is another place for humor, but...


they got some photos of teddy kennedy on the way to the convention...

Kennedy on way to convention

[SteveDallas]

I'm afraid I've been unable to sympathize with any of the hand-wringing about the lack of broadcast TV coverage of the political conventions. The broadcast networks are becoming increasingly irrelevant as it is. Anybody who is interested can find much more thorough coverage in other places. The fact is if "The Simple Life 3: Norristown" will attract more viewers than some old geezer politician, guess which one will be played? It's way, way, way, too late for anybody to change their minds about "public service" obligations of broadcasters.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by lookout123

this sounds to me like kerry is limiting reporters' access to him and the major players this week;

Looks like he should have been limiting reporter's access to his
wife.

Also reported by
CNN , in case you are assuming that it's just overblown dem-baiting on the part of FoxNews.

I do find Teresa's remarks (which she denied making, despite video and audio tape) amusing ... decrying unnamed behaviors as "Un-Pennsylvanian" and "Un-American."

I don't see how she's judging this, given that she is neither an American, nor a Pennsylvanian.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

The fact is if "The Simple Life 3: Norristown" will attract more viewers than some old geezer politician, guess which one will be played?

Now there's a show I'd watch ... ooh, a new game, do a shot everytime I would see someone I'd admitted.

I don't think I have enough booze in the house for a show like that.

[lookout123]

absolutely right wolf. i posted that under it's own thread.
found here:http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=6442

[lookout123]

Media Upset With DNC Restroom Facilities

Sun Jul 25, 7:17 AM ET

By BRIAN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - Media members, already perturbed by long security lines, may find themselves waiting in line for something nearly as important. As the majority of the print reporters arrived Saturday at the FleetCenter for the Democratic National Convention, tongues clucked when they saw the restroom facilities that they will be using for the next week.

Twenty portable restrooms, like those used on construction sites, are lined up in front of the media pavilion to service nearly 1,200 members of the print media who will be working around the clock. That's about 60 serious coffee-drinkers per toilet.

"That's absurd," said Jim Drinkard, a political reporter for USA Today, when he heard of the ratio of toilets per media member. "This is not the type of planning you'd expect out of someone trying to be a good host."

Drinkard, who is also the chairman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, said he was told by the DNCC, the committee in charge of planning the convention, that the lack of toilets was a move aimed at cutting costs. Calls to the DNCC press office were not immediately returned.

Drinkard also said the quality of the toilets was insufficient.

"We were led to believe there would be trailer units," Drinkard said, referring to the restrooms used at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Drinkard said that the trailers could get pretty unpleasant after a week of heavy use.

"But they are much better than Porta-Johns," he said.

[Cyber Wolf]

If I wasn't at work right now, I'd be rolling around, legs flailing, pounding the floor and turning blue with laughter about that.
So this'll have to do till I get home:

[lookout123]

so this week could we legitimately say that the "journalists" are full of shit?

[lookout123]

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 26, 2004; 1:24 PM


BOSTON, July 26--Those who say The Washington Post is out of step with the country just got a new round of ammunition.

The newspaper is printing 10,000 copies a day of a special convention issue that is being distributed for free among journalists and delegates attending the Democratic gathering here. And in large type at the top of Monday's second section, above a picture of John Kerry and John Edwards, is a banner: "ELECTION 2000."

Right topic, wrong year.

It seems that the paper's news desk used the same template as the last time a special convention issue was published, but forgot to update the year. The Post, however, isn't confiscating the copies.

"I decided to allow them to remain in the press center," said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. "Even though it's an embarrassing mistake, it's not a mistake in substance of stories."

But this was not exactly the New York Post reporting that Kerry had picked Dick Gephardt as his running mate. "At least we weren't wrong on the news," Downie said. "We were wrong in labeling the news."


© 2004 The Washington Post Company

[lookout123]

Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Socialists Join Communists in Backing Kerry

We've already reported how Communist Party USA has endorsed John Kerry for president, and now we're pleased to note that Democratic Socialists (isn't that redundant?) of America has chimed in as well.

"Kerry was hardly the first choice of our members. Most supported Dennis Kucinich or Howard Dean in the Democratic primary elections and would be very critical of Senator Kerry's voting record on trade issues, as well as his support for the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq; but the most important concern of our members now is to defeat Bush," said Frank Llewellyn, the socialists' national director.

[lookout123]

CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS KERRY CONVENTION FILM: WAR SCENES REENACTED


A bombshell new book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Kerry reenacted combat scenes for film while in Vietnam!

The footage is at the center of a growing controversy in Boston.

The official convention video introducing Kerry is directed by Steven Spielberg protégé James Smoll.

Secrecy surrounds the convention short, but the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, Smoll was given hours of Kerry's homemade 8 millimeter films.

"Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing," charges a naval officer in the upcoming book UNFIT FOR COMMAND.

"Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on film. Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns."

UNFIT FOR COMMAND will be unleashed next month by REGNERY. [It ranked #1,318 on the AMAZON hitparade Wednesday morning.]

The films shot by Kerry's own Super 8 millimeter hand-held movie camera have the grainy quality of home movies.

MORE

The BOSTON GLOBE reported in 1996 that the Kerry home movies "reveal something indelible about the man who shot them - the tall, thin, handsome Naval officer seen striding through the reeds in flak jacket and helmet, holding aloft the captured B-40 rocket. The young man so unconscious of risk in the heat of battle, yet so focused on his future ambitions that he would reenact the moment for film. It is as if he had cast himself in the sequel to the experience of his hero, John F. Kennedy, on the PT-109."

"John was thinking Camelot when he shot that film, absolutely," says Thomas Vallely, a fellow veteran and one of Kerry's closest political advisers and friends.

NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson in his new book RECKLESS DISREGARD, details one of the claimed Kerry reenactments for film:

"On February 28, 1969, now in charge of PCF 94, Kerry came under fire from an enemy location on the shore. The crew's gunner returned fire, hitting and wounding the lone gunman. Kerry directed the boat to charge the enemy position. Beaching his boat, Kerry jumped off, chased the wounded insurgent behind a thatched hutch, and killed him. Kerry and his crew returned within days, armed with a Super 8 video camera he had purchased at the post exchange at Cam Ranh Bay, and reenacted the skirmish on film."

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by lookout123

CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS KERRY CONVENTION FILM: WAR SCENES REENACTED

Old (and not particularly reliable) news.

The first thing to be said is that the senator’s movies are not self-aggrandizing. Kerry is hardly in the film, and never strikes so much as a heroic pose. These are the souvenirs of a 25-year-old guy sent to an exotic place on an otherworldly mission, who bought an 8-millimeter camera in the PX and shot a few hours of travelogue, most of it pretty boring if you didn’t live through it.

[lookout123]

uh, he did re-enact his exploits for film. there are a lot of people out there who still think the clips they've seen are from actual combat.

[Happy Monkey]

Maybe. I haven't seen any of the video. But Drudge is hardly a good source, and neither is the nut writing "Unfit for Command".