Kevin Phillips in the rare book room at Powells on the Bill Maher Show
If you watched Bill Maher on Friday, you saw his interview with Kevin Phillips, via satellite feed. If you want to know where Kevin Phillips was, he was in the rare books room at Powells in Portland.
That was a chaotic appearance of sorts. First, there was a medical emergency that delayed his talk a bit. Someone fainted, and had to be rushed out to an ambulance, parting the red sea of a crowd. Next, we had word that he would be interrupted by his Bill Maher interview. We would get to see his interview… or rather, his side of the interview. When he went back to prepare for the appearance, we got word that his appearance would not be at the :15 minute mark, but the :45 minute mark, meaning he would not come back for Questions. At this point, half the crowd dispersed. But, then, suddenly “Wow. Television is crazy. Um. They scheduled him back to :15.” At which point, half the half the dispersed crowd returned. By which point I had managed to grab a seat, which was good because I was sick of standing, and standing any longer would have made what was a split-decision to attend this appearance by Kevin Phillips anyway a little too cumbersome to make it worthwhile.
The crowd was instructed not to make any noises during his Bill Maher interview. I do not know if any laughter could be heard on the show. I guess the bullet is dodged in that the biggest bursts of laughter came with Kevin Phillips talking to the prep-staff before his interview. He found something Joe Biden said amusing, and said “I find anything said about Bush funny except when it’s positive.” — or something to that effect.
So what pearls of wisdom did he depart on the crowd? “I left Washington in 1997 because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had no use for Clinton or Gingrich.” “I assume about 80% of the crowd here are Democrats, or Democrat-leaning. I have to say the Democrats have been the most inept Opposition Party I’ve ever seen. My advice to you is that when you run into local elected Democrats, to push their on buttons.” “I know voting patterns well enough to say that Bush did not ‘steal’ Ohio. He won Kentucky and West Virginia much too easily such that a Kerry victory in Ohio would be skewered a little too much to be plausible.”
Skimming through his book, a few items stick out of interest, but if I get to them I’ll have to get to them on some later moment of my convenience.