Blog: Press

Watching CNN last night, I was struck by the lengths to which the commentators went to avoid talking about policy. It was all "the energy of the supporters" and Obama is young and about change and yada yada yada. The excerpt they replayed from Obama's speech was perhaps the most inane piece, the part about independents and Republicans coming together for him (huh?). In the speech, he did talk about policy (a little), and I believe that Hillary Clinton's war vote and ongoing support of saber-rattling in Iran cost her.

But CNN's Candy Crowley actively disagreed when Wolf Blitzer asked her if Clinton's war vote played a part, saying Clinton had changed her position and has been a staunch opponent of war with Iran. That's only true on the surface (she moves us closer while vehemently insisting on her opposition in carefully qualified language). But the surface is all that matters if you're CNN.

Thanks to Arielle Krebs for the great pictures of the UnAugural Ball, which I sadly wasn't able to attend - since at the same time, high in the Sierra Nevada, Google had rented out every hotel room in Squaw Valley for its annual ski trip. This year the company had grown so big we had to hold the party out in the parking lot, under five tents erected just for the occasion. Each tent had a different kind of music, with the main tent featuring 80s cover band and Tellme favorite Tainted Love, returning for the second year in a row. I joined a game of Mafia and successfully fooled the others as a Mafia member in my first game. The trip was definitely fun, though it's too bad we couldn't fit all the activities - dancing, talking, board games, poker, guitar playing and singing, and more - inside a single building, as we could last year. Next year, who knows?