Well, I attended with partner Jerome Armstrong and über-blogger Atrios. So who is Atrios, you ask? Here's a pic:
I'm about 5'7", so this should narrow down the options. Sidney Blumenthal is also taller than me... Come to your own conclusions.
While there, we ran into über-connected NDN head Simon Rosenberg, who is the blogosphere's truest friend inside the DC "establishment".
That's Jerome, btw. While there, I decided to take a picture every Republican campaign could use from here on to posterity to try and discredit everything this site accomplishes:
I didn't care, because damn it, Al is rhetorically brilliant. And his sharp wit and biting tongue will come in handy over the coming year.
Who else? Oh, there was this guy, who is convinced I trash him in public every chance I get. In reality, I only trash him in private. Publicly, I've got nothing but praise for Trippi.
But we were all at the dinner (which was very vegetarian-unfriendly, I might add), for these guys:
Update: I've been asked for "dirt", so here's my stream of consciousness on the matter:
Atrios and wife got a table front and center, while Jerome and I were exiled to Siberia. That's what I get for making fun of the DNC's latest Flash animation. But it was great meeting Atrios (and his wife, sorry ladies). He was probably the most interesting person in that whole room.
Snubs? Dean left midway through Kerry's speech. And speaking of Kerry's speech, it wasn't so hot. Applause lines fell flat, and his voice trailed off randomly at times. It seemed as though he was in that "I need a vacation from my vacation" stage. And coming in the heels of Clinton's speech... well, you can imagine the disconnect. Damn, Clinton is a talent. Sigh...
The National Building Museum was stunningly gorgeous. The food was lame. Carter looked like he was 4 feet tall and old. Ted Kennedy looked REALLY old.
Sharpton was funny. Gephardt looked good. Wes Clark looked good. All the speakers talked about how great McAuliffe was (and if nothing else, he did get the DNC out of debt). Clinton gave Kucinich some props in his speech, but no one else did (that I remember). Edwards looked weird to me, but I'm not sure in what way.
I got some good-natured ribbing from some TNR writers, but it's not my fault their magazine is owned by Republicans. I met a bunch of people and exchanged business cards, even though neither side had any intention of ever contacting the other. The whole time I kept thinking about how nice it was that I lived in the other side of the country.
The Freepers were out protesting the event. One had a sign that said "Clinton: Pardons for sale", to which I thought, "Damn, remember when people cared about silly shit like that? Now we have a president who has put the entire country for sale while sending hundreds to die in his fool's errand."
And perhaps that's why we desperately need Kerry to win. So that we can go back to obsessing over bjs and pardons.
Update: Jerome chimes in with his own stream-of-consciousness observations:
"My highlight of the night was getting patted on the back by Teddy Kennedy while he chatted a grumble. Dean had to leave for a 9 pm flight to catch. As it was, he left around 9:15, and as Kelly & Stephanie were dragging him out Dean, unknowingly of course, snubbed kos & atrios, brushing my "Governor" invite off with a brisk VT-like wave and a 'hey there'. So, it was a 'trifecta' of a snub by Dean. I made up for it a bit latter by snagging Trippi to meet Atrios (and that brought animation to Trippi's dour amidst Kerry's speech, which was nice to see). I talked with Clark a bit about the good 'ol draft days, 'we had a shot' he said. 'Yea, in May', I replied. While were at a table full of Terry McFriends, Atrios got the table with Senator Durbin. A former Deaniac there shared her analysis with us about Deaniac recovery. There's three groups, the 'get over it' the 'grievers' and the 'lost children.' She herself was a 'get over it' Deaniac, and told us how energetic the Kerry office is. For the 'grievers' her theory was that if you joined 2003 in Q4, it'd last one month, Q3 then 2 months, Q2 then 3 months, and Q1 then 4 months. When I mentioned that I drank 2 years ago, she sighed 'oh' and gave me a soft pat. She was really concerned about the 'lost children' (which someone took upon himself to play the role of for the hell of it). Where would they go, to Nader? Come home to Kerry... Yea, the food was an an atrocious crime against veggies, consisting of cabbage-alone coleslaw atop a safeway hamburger bun. I concentrated instead on the fruit mixture inside the watermelon. I did appreciate Carter's dig against Nader, and so did all the other Dems there. As it brought the largest standing ovation the whole evening, it struck me as off-- that the biggest ovation during any speech was saved for bashing the Nader folly instead of the Republicans. That's DC for you. Clinton's speech was fantastic, especially damning of Bush, vintage finger wagging. Kerry was the generic Dem that beats Bush in the polls, that's all we ask. However, I did see Kerry's Detroit speech the next day on CNN while at the airport, and thought it was excellent a couple of times, six months to go... "