February 18, 2005

CPAC, Day 1

This experience started well with the breakfast with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. What was a little strange was along with the dozen or so webloggers were P.R. employees who were interested in how they could work with webloggers. Companies see the power of the blogosphere. The Swift Boat story proves that.

I wrote earlier that I dealt with some technical difficulties. Using the secure wi-fi is worthless for me. My notebook works fine on the unsecure wireless network in my hotel, but the blue screen of death appeared when trying to log onto the CPAC network. I have to resort to a LAN cable which is fine. Since, I don't want to drag my computer all over the place a cable works.

Even though I have the same credentials as the media I didn't realize what that entailed. No one told me. Only late in the afternoon did I know there was a green room where we can interview people.

For most of Day 1 I was just getting a feel for the event. I wandered around seeing who was where. Later in the day I decided I needed to start doing a little reporting. Dan Flynn came to Bloggers Corner. I'm very curious about his new book Intellectual Morons. The title sounded like one of those shallow polemics that may rile you up it has no staying power. But after reading the dust jacket it seemed to have more heft. I grabbed Dan for an interview. Posting that later today is my number one priority.

At the banquet Dick Cheney gave a speech that was standard Cheney, but there was nothing new in it. I was much more impressed with Sen. Norm Coleman. He passionately accepted an award for his investigation of the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal. Coleman told the audience that President Bush "came in a crucial moment in history." That moment being Sep. 11, 2001. Coleman praised the U.S. as being "the world's leader in everyway." On the U.N. the Minnesota Senator said that international body is a "flawed institution" with "zero accountablility." He strongly reaffirmed his call for Kofi Annan to resign as U.N. Secretary General. Coleman delivered red meat material but in a passionate way. This guy has to be on the short list for VP in 2008.

Kevin put together a Day 1 linkfest.