marccooper

Nailing Pinochet

Randy Paul at Beautiful Horizons reminds me how the noose is tightening around not only General Pinochet but also about his namesake son. Baby Pinochet got thrown into the clink last week accused of running a stolen car ring (a step up the moral ladder from his miscreant father).

Meanwhile. the General himself remains in a world of hurt, increasingly enmeshed in the Riggs Bank scandal.

May God grant Pinochet enough more time on earth so that he can do at least a few days of hard time before passing into Heaven-- which seems full of his ilk.

Post-Convention Score Card

I’m back at home in L.A. and decompressing after spending the week in Boston at the DNC. I head back onto the road Sunday to report on Southwestern swing states.

But in this lull… a few moments of light-hearted wrapping up of convention loose ends.

Here’s my personal score card.

MOST OVER-RATED SPEECH:

Barack Obama. Mario Cuomo version 2.1. He was good, not great. (If he was named something like Jack Smith, would there be as much notice?). After his 1984 immigrant-makes-good speech Mario was also supposedly destined for national grandeur. Mario who? That guy in the Doritos commercials?

MOST OVER-REPORTED STORY:

Blahg-blahg-blahg. And this from a blahg-ger.

BEST SINGLE MOMENT OF THE WEEK:

(For me at least) happened way off the convention floor. At the traditional Hotline humor night held this time at Suffolk University, Time magazine White House correspondent Matt Cooper (no relation) had me in stitches, Here’s one guy who could quit his day job.

MOST SURPRISING MOMENT:

John Kerry’s speech. Imagine Gene Wilder in the Young Frankenstein, his eyed gaping wide, and exclaiming “It’s Alive. A-L-I-V-E!”

MOST REPELLANT MOMENT:

The total laundering of crook and charlatan Al Sharpton. Can you imagine? SEVEN standing ovations for this guy? Forget about his role in the fraudulent Tawana Bradley story, Sharpton is a rank opportunist and mercenary who has fronted for Al Damato and who wound up putting his primary campaign this year in the hands of Republican dirty-trickster Roger Stone. On top of everything else, he’s a deadbeat. New York Democrats are all hip to his act. What’s wrong with everybody else?

MOST EXAGGERATED STORY:

The great Boston security lock-down. There were indeed cops everywhere. But these are Boston cops—more Dunkin’ Doughnut types than Starsky and Hutch. Friendly, helpful, cooperative. The uniformed Secret Service guys (and gals) who managed the metal-detectors and personal searches on the way into the Fleet Center were absolute model professionals, not at all edgy or jumpy or abusive. First rate G-people.
And what’s with the Boston Fire Department? Some sort of Irish Thing we Hebes don’t quite get. But colorful if not down right picturesque, as if they were right out of Disneyland Main Street. (Yes, yes I know I’m soft on all this, but I come from L.A. and that’s my point of reference… you’ll understand).

MOST FRIGHTENING THOUGHT:

Three weeks from now we have to do this all over again. And with the Republicans, no less.

Kind On Kerry

I’m a registered, card-carrying, certified Kerry-phobe and my instant reaction is that he performed some sort of miracle… an excellent performance, far better than any expectation I certainly had.

I evaluate this, of course, primarily as a TV show because that’s what it is. I’m not talking about any deep politics, because that’s what it isn’t. But it was a helluva show.

George W. Bush is commonly under-estimated. Now, we see how John Kerry has maintained a two decade career in politics. He’s no amateur either.

I think he took the screen from the first line, I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty. An absolutely brilliant manuever. I thought he looked great running up the stairs. The use of the Bruce Springsteen sound bed perfectly clicked.

Some sort of new firmware was clearly dowloaded into the chip on the back of his neck and Kerry literally sprang to life. I’ve witnessed at least 20 speeches up close from this guy, but have never seem him cranked up to this level (not exactly hyper, but at least at the upper range of say Harrison Ford). He was probably helped out by the pressure to hurry through the speech to make sure it ended before the networks might pull the plug at 11pm Eastern.

Teresa tearing up, apparently genuinely, when Kerry expressed his love for her was also a great TV moment. A WHOLE lot better than the insulting charade imposed upon us by the old Bill and Hilary team.

The whole military, band of brothers, cordite and cojones theme in the set-up, would not have been my first choice. But I also think it worked great. With all those beefy swift boat vets up there it certainly didn’t look like some Code Pink event, did it?

Leaving aside the wisdom of the strategy, if the Democratic goal was to pull out the national security rug from under George Bush, then it can be said: Mission Accomplished. There was a clear single-mindedness at work here, percolating for months, going back to Kerry’s vow during the primaries to “Bring It On” and the promse was fulfilled. At least for tonight.

I was genuinely moved by Jim Rassman, the chubby guy who introduced Max Cleland, and who had his life saved by Kerry. It was a bravado appearance by a humble guy who until January was an anonymous retired Orange County sheriff. He came out of the woodwork during the Iowa primary and though a Republican, he showed up in Des Moines to endorse the campaign. I had the privilege of standing about 10 feet from both men in a community center when they had their first reunion since Vietnam and I found it deeply affecting. So there’s my bias.

Max Cleland, of course, is a tough act to top and he was rolled out, literally, for maximum effectiveness.

Now the negatives. Or better said, the parts I disliked.

On substance: While there were SOME good pushbacks at Bush on several subjects, including the war, and while I liked very much that Kerry said he deals in “complexities,” he certainly offered no nuance, no detail and no satisfactory explanation of what he would do in Iraq. Or what’s wrong with the current course. I personally do NOT support an immediate withdrawal of troops and I wouldn’t want or expect Kerry to make that call. But he should have clearly said the war was bollixed up, that its $300 billion price tag is unacceptable, that it is creating a backlash that will haunt us for decades to come and that he was going to at least … shift… if not change course. More on that in the days to come.

As to the rest of the policy stuff… no surprises. Pure Clintonism. And anyone who would expect anything else is living on some other planet. That’s what Kerry is. And that’s what the Democrats are. Period. Full Stop.

Negatives on the TV Show aspect: “Getting to know John Kerry” doesn’t mean having a pajama party with his whole flippin’ family. I found Teresa’s “boys” and John’s “girls” beyond annoying. Maybe it’s the knowledge that the family is worth a billion dollars that makes me suspect they are spoiled brats. (Note to Alexandra Kerry: You’re 30 years old, you’re Dad is likely to be President. Your step-mom is fabulously wealthy. It’s about time you got a real profession other than wannabe movie director).

I know some found the childhood stories about trying to save hamsters endearing. I found it downright frightening that this sort of crap has anything to do with the process of selecting the president of the most powerful country on earth. But then again, all really good TV shows, seen as effective mass spectacle, have a frightening aspect to them.

Now, we’ll see what kind of bounce any of this gets in the polls. In the meantime, I will be bouncing back home to Los Angeles Friday morning. I’ll take one day off. And then on Sunday I’m planning to head out to Arizona and New Mexico for a week to do some reporting to see if the great DNC 2004 Show has moved any significant number of swing voters into the Democratic column.

A final word on convention week. It’s been a lot of fun, as usual, covering this event for the last week. And blogging it has been a special treat. The software we use allows us to monitor the web traffic that is generated and I can see that a good number of you have been logging on and reading these rants. Thank you.

But you have been unusually quiet, perhaps guessing that the intensity of this event would permit me little time to respond to comments. True. But now that it’s over, let me hear from you. Post your comments below reacting to the convention, Kerry and the coverage.

See you back in L.A.
P.S. Conservative columnist Robert George -- a former Gingrich staffer-- says he thinks he might have just heard the acceptance speech of the "next president."

Pat Buchanan just said he thought the speech was remarkable, that it resonated with him.

Joe Trippi, former Howard Dean campaign manager, says that the Kerry we saw tonight is the fearsome Kerry that whupped Dean in Iowa.

Pretty good reviews.

Edwards Flinches

(Please continue to check out my Special L.A. Weekly Convention Blog)

Boston DNC
Wednesday Midnight

I’m going to score John Edward’s speech as a clean, stand-up double, but considerably short of the into-the-parking-lot homer he’s capable of. Yes, his delivery was a bit slow and he was having some sort of trouble with his voice… but the flaw was in the text in itself.

The verbiage just didn’t lend itself to an old-fashioned barn-burner and Edwards – whose surprising rise during the primary season was fueled primarily by his oratory—was restrained. I suspect this was intentional, a “strategic” decision by the Ticket Handlers. All part of the ongoing effort to make the Dems come off as Strong And Safe.

OK OK fair enough. But it’s still a shame that they didn’t uncork Edwards.

Now to the substance: Even a cynical grump like yours truly has to admire Edwards’ Two Americas genuflection to class division and inequality. Kudos to Edwards as well for his explicit talk about THE POOR, going beyond the Clintonian crocodile tears for the friggin’-forgotten-middle-class. And another plus mark for Edwards for his passage on confronting racism.

But his speech failed to get passing grades on the war. I don’t want to unpack it all in detail at this late house, but check out a transcript and you’ll see that Edwards, inadvertently but undeniably, came close to conflating the war on terror with the war in Iraq a-la-Dick Cheney.

Indeed, Edwards said substantially nothing about what should be done in Iraq other than to lay off some of the sacrifice on the Europeans. That’s not enough at this juncture.

It was left to Jesse Jackson earlier in the evening—far out of prime time—to utter the phrase “bring the troops home” to which he immediately appended “as soon as possible.”

More detailed analysis manana.

Photo: The view of Edwards from the DNC "Bloggers' Row" on the 7th level of the Fleet Center.

Talking Points Party

My mid-convention report has just been published in L.A. Weekly. An excerpt:

With the speakers required to submit their podium copy in advance to party managers eager to homogenize the nationally televised message, who can be surprised that avuncular Jimmy Carter, railing against the “super-rich,” came off — by midweek — as perhaps the most radical voice to be heard on the floor of the Democratic National Convention?

The political discipline imposed by the DNC’s producers on the dais went way beyond the corseted standards of, say, the Republican Party and flirted with what Marxist-Leninists call “iron discipline.”

After nearly four years of many a Democrat branding Bush a liar, a lout, a dope and a smirking chimp. After suggesting he came to power through a coup, or that he might have winked at Saudi involvement in 9/11 (which, according to some, might in itself have been some kind of a self-inflicted American Reichstag). After tarring him as the most radical, or the most dangerous and, at a minimum, the worst president of our lifetime. After all this, it was all of a sudden taboo to as much as mention President You-Know-Who from the convention stage.

Maybe this is a wise strategy aimed at sewing up the decisive swing vote. Or maybe it’s the usual party timidity. What’s for sure is that, this week at least, it ain’t even up for a debate.

Go no further than poor Howard Dean’s speech Tuesday night. I’ve never been a great fan of Doctor Dean, but I winced with empathy when I saw the on-camera role the party had assigned him. Given barely a handful of minutes, and with his former campaign manager Joe Trippi denied the courtesy of a floor pass, Dean was assigned Jesse Jackson’s old cleanup position. Get up onstage, Howard, and bark any of the straying sheep back into the fold.

You’d think the guy who so much as invented the Democratic campaign this cycle, the candidate who jump-started the base, who literally put the party back in the race and who almost re-invented the process of grassroots politicking, might be afforded a tad more latitude.

But no. “I’m Howard Dean and I’m voting for John Kerry” was the nut of Dean’s mini-speech. More than a loyal Good Soldier, Dean had been re-programmed into the unblinking Manchurian candidate.

I’m not blaming him. These were simply the rules that were imposed. Either comply with the 3-by-5 card of mind-numbingly mushy DNC talking points, or you don’t get off the bench:

We Democrats have never been so united.

We Democrats have never been so energized.

We Democrats guarantee that John Kerry is safe for you to elect.

We Democrats are moderates in favor of a strong America.

And, most importantly, we Democrats have no differences among ourselves

Sharpton: "I have a scheme."

Just heard Al Sharpton address the convention and I was rather astoundedby the glorious reception he received. "Our vote is not for sale," he thundered. This from the man who leased hiis entire campaign out to a Republican consultant named Roger Stone. The only line missing from Sharpton's speech: "I have a scheme."

See my L.A. Weekly Convention Blog

We Interrupt This Convention Love-In....

... to bring you at least one, thougtful dissenting view. Tuesday's WashPo has this bracing story about SEIU labor leader Andy Stern's wonderfully contrarian hiccups over the Kerry Democrats. Here are the money graphs:

BOSTON, July 26 -- Breaking sharply with the enforced harmony of the Democratic National Convention, the president of the largest AFL-CIO union said Monday that both organized labor and the Democratic Party might be better off in the long run if Sen. John F. Kerry loses the election.

Andrew L. Stern, the head of the 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said in an interview with The Washington Post that both the party and its longtime ally, the labor movement, are "in deep crisis," devoid of new ideas and working with archaic structures.

Stern argued that Kerry's election might stifle needed reform within the party and the labor movement. He said he still believes that Kerry overall would make a better president than President Bush, and his union has poured huge resources into that effort. But he contends that Kerry's election would have the effect of slowing the "evolution" of the dialogue within the party.

Asked whether if Kerry became president it would help or hurt those internal party deliberations, Stern said, "I think it hurts."

Stern's dissatisfaction with the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party is not new, but his decision to voice his frustration on the opening day of a carefully scripted convention was an unwelcome surprise to Kerry's convention managers, who had been proclaiming their delight at the absence of any internal conflicts.

Speaking of the effort to create new political and union organizations, Stern said, "I don't know if it would survive with a Democratic president," because Kerry, like former president Bill Clinton, would use the party for his own political benefit and labor leaders would become partners of the new establishment.

"It is a hollow party," Stern said, adding that "if John Kerry becomes president, it hurts" chances of reforming the Democrats and organized labor.

Stern is perhaps the most outspoken of the leaders of four or five unions that have been talking about breaking away from the AFL-CIO to form some kind of new workers movement. In the struggle for the Democratic nomination last winter, Stern's union, along with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), delivered an early endorsement to former Vermont governor Howard H. Dean -- a step that solidified Dean's status as the early favorite for the nomination.

Look, at this point I don't care to even opine if Stern is right or wrong (I think he's probably right). But kudos to him for trying, perhaps inadvertently, to force open some attempt at debate during this mind-numbing week of lemming-like "Demoratic Unity."

I'm also particularly proud that my daughter Natasha is a front-line health care organizer for Stern's SEIU.

The Union Makes Us Strong!

Remember to check out my L.A. Weekly Convention Blog Live From Boston.

Bushless In Boston

Monday Night 8:45 PM
Boston

We’re Bushless in Boston. Just heard the New Al Gore give his speech to the Convention and –much as expected-- there was a nary a mention of President You-Know-Who. With speakers having to run podium copy by the convention producers and party apparatchik, the discipline coming from the dais is what the Marxist-Leninists used to call “iron-clad.”

Read this entire posting at my L.A. Weekly Convention Blog.

Bombs Away: Black Dems and Lockheed Martin Together At Last

From the Boston DNC...

That's Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Rep. Elijah Cummins posing for me before a photo of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and a banner from Lockheed Martin. It's all part of the homage to Hamer thrown last nite in Boston on the eve of the DNC. The liberal Congressional Black Caucus sponsored the event with Lockheed and Verizon.

Is Fannie Lou, famous for taking the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation to the 1964 Convention saying she was sick and tired of being sick tired now rolling over in her grave?

See my full story on my L.A. Weekly Convention Blog.

Full Audio Blog....

...is now up and running The Nation web site...