Hillary, Bill and Me

Washington DC (see the picture)
N 38 52.736 W 077 01.507

Our plan to avoid the heat today was to go to some air conditioned place, and then to catch a movie. Libby decided to stay on the boat, so I set off alone.

I headed for the National Building Museum. It sounded interesting and it was easy to get to on the bus. When I got there, I was surprised to see a number of satellite TV trucks outside. That should have tipped me off. I went in to the museum, and what did I find? There was Hillary Clinton giving her concession speech.



Did I imply that it was an intimate meeting with just Hillary, Bill and me? Hardly. There were about 10,000 other people there including about 1,000 from the press. I tried to find a place where I could see her, but I couldn't. The best I could manage was to get a picture from the balcony by holding my camera above my head.



The acoustics of this great hall were terrible. I could hear her voice booming and echoing, but I couldn't understand a word. I suspect that none of the other people could understand either, but that didn't stop them from cheering and clapping at the end of each sentence. I'll upload a video with sound if I can.

It was exciting. I've never been to a political rally of any kind before. It was fun to watch the people and the press. I eventually found a spot behind the press bleachers where they had TV monitors. There, I could see more reporters typing on their laptops. One section had earphones where I assume, they could hear the speech. Another section must have been for bloggers. They could not see, nor did they have earphones to hear. There really was no point to them being present in the hall rather than sitting at their computers at home. That didn't stop them from typing opinions furiously on their keyboards. Maybe that's why political bloggers have bad reputations.


After the speech, the TV reporters stood in front of cameras and gave their reports. Bill and Hillary started working the crowd, shaking hands. A few supporters (probably those who donate more than a million) got hugs instead of handshakes.

My original thought on the whole thing was cynical; that the event was just designed to stroke the Clinton's egos even more (as if they needed that.) Having seen it though, I'm less cynical. They were really trying to thank their supporters for the support.