Fear and Loathing at Right Online

Posted on | June 19, 2011 | 25 Comments

MINNEAPOLIS
Three obese women are sitting on the other side of the cocktail table in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel where I’m writing this. They are not only obese, they also have iPhones, and are checking their messages while chatting about nonsense of no relevance to the serious political events that have transpired during the last three days at the fourth annual Right Online conference.

It’s the iPhones that annoy me most. My cheap Samsung cell phone died yesterday. I’m a professional journalist who, by all rights, ought to have the latest 4G mobile communications technology. Instead, I’ve got nothing, while this trio of fat women, just arrived in Minneapolis for a conference of government employees, can afford top-of-the-line stuff. It’s a whole different kind of “social justice” issue, you see: Those who feast on taxpayer largesse have wealth and leisure — to say nothing of ample grocery budgets, as is so apparent — while those in the private sector are lean and hungry, with no time to lounge around hotel lobbies exchanging idle gossip.

But there’s no time thinking about that stuff now because, as usual, I’m short on time. In 30 minutes, Erik Telford’s going to have a taxi at the front door to get us to the airport for the flight home and I’ve got to have this post finished by then, with my laptop packed and ready to go. No time to distill the Final Wisdom of the past three days. Just to quickly note:

My exclusive item about the Palin campaign, derived from “one Republican source” whose identity I must protect.
Mentioned by Rush Limbaugh, which was pretty freaking cool.
My exclusive interview with Stephen Bannon, director of the new Palin documentary, The Undefeated.
My coverage of the Herman Cain press conference yesterday, where the candidate yelled at a lefty blogger. (And who hasn’t ever had the urge to yell at a lefty blogger?)

I’ve got no time to upload video, nor time to write captions for all these photos I took. Just enough time to say, “Hit the freaking tip jar” and then — whoosh! — off to the airport I go. It might be nice to have a government job so I could get fat and carry an iPhone, but that ain’t my life, and it can’t be helped.