Scrapbook
Scrapbook Preen Monster The night before last week's Democratic convention was set to get underway, John Kerry made a "surprise" early appearance in Boston to attend the rubber match of a...
...All balloons should be going...
...Salon...
...And Salon, too," a grateful Hickey boomed into the microphone...
...They'd wanted to know whether Kerry thought the designated-hitter rule should be abolished...
...He told the crowd to go see Outfoxed...
...Let the confetti come down...
...Mischer's Mishap You didn't think we were just going to ignore it, did you...
...More balloons...
...Go, balloons...
...We want more balloons coming down...
...Necks craned...
...Go, confetti...
...By that point, incidentally, the senator had already finished his spot on ESPN...
...And then: "The Nation...
...The idea of missing a Yankees-Red Sox series right before a convention week was not acceptable," he offered...
...The Nation," she repeated...
...JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We did...
...We have to be looking at this as obviously not a turning point of the campaign...
...Last week at Fenway, throwing from Little League distance on the grass, several feet shy of the pitcher's mound, Kerry nevertheless bounced his toss in the dirt—and was booed...
...Balloons...
...And many reporters dutifully complied, the trip indeed having been kept a secret from them—if not from the many hundreds of other people necessary to clear Logan Airport's runways for Kerry's arrival, block the city's streets for his motorcade, ready Fenway Park's infield for his ceremonial first pitch, free up some box seats for his entourage, and map out camera assignments for his "impromptu" mid-game national television interview on ESPN...
...Eventually, the place went silent and the mood turned grumpy and Roger Hickey got desperate and started plugging a list of lefty-leaning media outlets and "documentary" productions...
...And BuzzFlash," Hickey responded...
...Tons of them...
...More balloons...
...No confetti...
...I don't know if our camera can show...
...They cheered...
...Who never played a single major-league game in a Red Sox uniform...
...I want all balloons to go...
...Which turns out not to be a new policy at all, actually...
...He told the crowd to listen to Air America...
...What the f— are you guys doing up there...
...What's happening, balloons...
...But it is recorded how he explained the stunt...
...Come on, guys...
...Jeff Greenfield, this has been a very well-organized convention, but the balloons are not coming down as rapidly as they would like...
...It also turns out he's really bad at it...
...someone helpfully shouted from the floor...
...We heard—we may have heard a profanity, Wolf...
...He was everywhere in Boston last week, and he was always late...
...He's been giving instructions to let the balloons come down, there are thousands, and, in fact, these balloons are about to land on our heads here on the floor of the convention...
...I don't see anything happening...
...So his various event hosts invariably found themselves vamping awkwardly onstage while their increasingly irritable audiences wondered what the hell was going on—and while The Scrapbook was happily writing everything down...
...Finally, after almost an hour and a half of this, Hickey took the stage to report that "Michael Moore is in the house...
...But still: No sign of Moore...
...They cheered...
...BLITZER: This has really frustrated people, that balloons are not coming down as quickly, but—you know what...
...Another cheer went up...
...We need more balloons...
...They cheered...
...Go, balloons...
...We need all of them coming down...
...First, emcee Roger Hickey tried to calm the crowd by announcing that "Michael Moore is on his way...
...Could we zoom in a little bit...
...We're getting more balloons...
...At an Iowa campaign event broadcast by C-SPAN last fall, Kerry treated his audience to a purportedly eyewitness account of the infamous Bill Buckner incident in the 1986 World Series—but got the score and the inning wrong...
...More balloons...
...Go, confetti...
...You know, it was an accident to leave the microphone open...
...Go, balloons...
...Our favorite episode: Tuesday's "Take Back America" forum at which Moore was scheduled to speak after Howard Dean but, alas, was nowhere to be seen once Dean was done...
...But, you know, they are—I'm looking up now, Wolf...
...But Ms...
...vanden Heuvel was ignored...
...The new "policy" being that John Forbes Kerry, a Regular Guy Just Like You and Me, will undertake to prove as much by ostentatious displays of Regular Guy enthusiasm for hometown baseball...
...Let's move it...
...All balloons...
...I want more balloons...
...A third round of applause got underway, accompanied by chants: "Mi-chael...
...But these balloons did not come en masse the way Don Mischer [unintelligible], and we heard him express that feeling somewhat emphatically...
...Security" requirements being what they are these days, it was only after Kerry's scheduled plane trip to Florida had already gone wheels-up in Columbus, Ohio, that he personally informed his press corps that they were actually on their way to Massachusetts...
...He told them to read the American Prospect...
...Apparently they weren't that desperate...
...Hickey formally introduced his star attraction...
...No confetti yet...
...That kind of thing only works once, though, so before long Hickey had been forced to rush not one, not two, but three lower-billed speechmakers into early duty...
...Let's talk a little bit about the speech, what we just heard from John Kerry...
...All right...
...You'll remember in 1980 in New York that Jimmy Carter's balloons trickled down one by one, what was seen to be an omen...
...Stand by, confetti...
...While those balloons are coming down, what you heard was the voice of Don Mischer...
...Jesus...
...Just a couple weeks ago, Kerry had occasion publicly to discuss current Red Sox All-Stars "Manny Ortez" and "David Ortez," neither of whom exists...
...cried Katrina vanden Heuvel—its editor— from the back of the room...
...Keep coming, balloons...
...Kerry aides urged reporters traveling with the campaign to focus their next-day stories on how successfully this gambit had been kept a secret, ostensibly for "security reasons...
...somebody else yelled...
...There's not enough coming down...
...No confetti...
...Scrapbook Preen Monster The night before last week's Democratic convention was set to get underway, John Kerry made a "surprise" early appearance in Boston to attend the rubber match of a three-game Red Sox home stand against the New York Yankees...
...More balloons . . . WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right...
...There are still a lot of balloons...
...All balloons...
...We need more balloons...
...He's the director for the Democratic party—the organizer of this convention...
...A few years back, for example, guesting on a Boston sports-radio call-in show, Kerry was asked the obvious question— Who's your all-time favorite BoSock, Senator?—but did not reply with any of the obvious answers...
...My favorite Red Sox player of all time," Kerry instead told his astonished host, "is the Walking Man, Eddie Yost...
...One Nation, Under the Radar Like a beautiful woman, Michael Moore never arrives on time...
...A cheer went up...
...Go, balloons...
...JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR Political Analyst: Right, the first crisis of the convention, and it's almost to the close...
...Go, balloons...
...Go, balloons...
...Let them all come...
...Balloons, balloons, balloons...
...Don Mischer giving instructions, "Let the balloons come down...
...Why the hell is nothing falling...
...Go, confetti...
...And he'd apparently already gotten all that Regular Guy business out of his system—because he never did manage to answer the question one way or the other...
...Mi-chael...
...Bring them...
...So we changed the policy...
...BuzzFlash...
...Bring them down...
...It is not recorded whether the senator apologized for this hijacking...
...What's happening to the balloons...
...Here, then, a full, unexpurgated transcript of the audio feed CNN broadcast from the Democratic convention last Thursday immediately following John Kerry's acceptance speech: DON MISCHER, CONVENTION PRODUCER: Go, balloons...
...During the seventh inning, when the Fenway Jum-botron fixed its eye on a woman in the stands carrying a professionally printed "Team Kerry" poster, the crowd booed again, with gusto...
...they will be down here very quickly, I suspect, and all of us on the floor of the convention will be inundated...
...You can see there are still a lot of balloons that have not come down yet...
Vol. 9 • August 2004 • No. 45
