Clairvoyants!

Meeting celebrities - show-biz, media, especially politics - is the highlight of my life.

It comes mainly from having grown up out in the boondocks. My friends and I would sit up at night, reading magazines and newspapers and watching the TV, and think "Wow. Our pathetic lives would be validated if we could only schmooze...no, forget that, if we could even meet any of these people".

Mayors, starlets, barroom rockers, legislators, columnists - whomever. It doesn't matter. I love to meeting them, and will do almost anything so that I can.

Why?

Because fundamentally, I find myself validated only when I bask in the reflected glow of others' glory.

And if you believe that, you should be a Nick Coleman fan.

I criticize Nick Coleman a lot. This column sort of shows you why.

He's writing - a week after the fact - about last week's reception at the Governor's Mansion.

Thirty-two years in this business and I have been inside the Minnesota governor's residence only once, when Gov. Rudy Perpich ranted to the press about how the old dump needed fixing up and led us to a bucket in the attic that had been placed beneath a leaky ceiling for a photo opportunity.

I'm not complaining. I try to avoid the corridors of power on Summit Avenue. That creepy mansion puts a hex on people.

If bloggers were smart, they'd stay away, too.

Let's come back to that later.

Last Saturday, Mark Brunswick - who wrote the excellent Two Years In Iraq blog last spring - wrote about the confab at the mansion:

Some members of the new media found out this week that they like the old idea of schmoozing with people in power.

On the one hand, a few of the bloggers present seemed...well, not so much "starstruck" as "adulatory". Pawlenty's a natural politician, and a great host; he's good at getting people to like him. It's part of the reason he's the governor.

But it struck me as a galloping overreach on Brunswick's part to assume that we, as a group, enjoyed "schmoozing with people in power". I can't speak for the likes of John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson and King Banaian, who regularly hobnob among people with clout; speaking for myself, I enjoy schmoozing with everyone, power be damned. I have no less fun talking with bikers at a dive, people in line at Rainbow or my neighbors than I did with the Governor or Dan McElroy, his chief of staff. I do a lot of it, and not because it's my job.

Brunswick's line, unfortunately, put an air of cynicism to it that it didn't warrant. Which is fine, except that Coleman takes it and runs with it.

Straight into a tree, as it happens:

The latest goofy situation came last week when the current occupant, Tim Pawlenty, hosted a reception for the right-wing blog fraternity.

The guest list was dominated by self-described "new media" activists whose reliably partisan views have earned them links on the home page of the Minnesota Republican Party.

Well, blow me down. Sure enough, there I am. I don't recall ever being asked about it, but it makes perfect sense, I guess.

I don't care who the governor plays gin rummy with. The problem is that state law says the mansion -- "the people's house" -- is for ceremonial purposes, not partisan ones. So it is notable when a governor -- one mentioned as a contender for higher office -- invites spear carriers to make nice with him at the people's house.

Did you read this and picture Little Nick Coleman in elementary school, in the restroom, smirking at one of the other little boys; "You didn't wash your hands! I'm telling Sister Bertha!"

Coleman, naturally, doesn't favor us with a reference to the "state law" in question. The problem with the law is that it's so legalistic; if it mentions "partisan" activities, I'd say it's even money that it means "Official GOP or DFL activities"; you can't set up tables in the solarium to stuff envelopes.

While we're all partisan - with a small "p" - it was far from an official GOP activity. Coleman would have you believe that it was; it'd be, I'll be charitable, a mistaken view.

Coleman talked with Kelli Gorr, program director at WJON in Saint Cloud - the WCCO of lake country:

"I'll stand as the one person who would not be considered right-wing," said Gorr, who broadcast a talk show from the governor's reception room in St. Paul on the day of the reception, but who took pains to present a politically balanced program. "The spin was that they [the governor's staff] wanted to reach new media able to disseminate information quickly and to say thank you to the nontraditional media. That was the spin. But if you call it most definitely right-wing, you're not off base."

Can't slip a thing past Kelli Gorr; the bloggers were Republicans.

So the questions are:

• Do some of the bloggers sound star-struck? Maybe. There's all kinds of people out there.
• Does it mean bloggers are partisan? Duh. I'm a Republican. Deal with it.
• Does it mean that bloggers are less independent? Good question. I have in general been a Pawlenty supporter, although I've strongly disagreed with him on gambling, transit policy, education policy, and state casinos, and wish to hold his feet in the fire about taxes. I'm a supporter - he earned it - but he could blow it, still. Am I an independent? Figure that for yourself - but I don't think I qualify as any less independent than, say, a columnist who parlays his "independent", "non-monkey" opinion into a job at an Air America affiliate, which is hardly a sign of rigorous independence, by the way.

Coleman ends with a "warning":

Be careful, bloggers. I've seen it happen before.

The mansion plays tricks on big egos. Once you glimpse yourself in a gilded mirror, you start to believe your own stuff.

Yeah. We've seen that before:

I am a professional journalist...I have been a reporter longer than most bloggers have been alive...But here's what really makes bloggers mad: I know stuff...I have reported from almost every county in the state, I have covered murders, floods, tornadoes, World Series and six governors...I have an ear trained to detect baloney....

Is it really "knowing stuff" when you're "believing your own" "stuff"?

And do we call this - the act of schmoozing yourself, being star-struck with your own presence, "Autoschmoozotic?"

Posted by Mitch at May 25, 2005 12:35 PM | TrackBack