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Chuck Norris knows the last digit of pi
Dec. 14th, 2007 03:09 pmThis morning I had my hand shaken by (former) Governor Mike Huckabee, asked him whether he planned to take America to war again, breathed the same air as Chuck Norris and was subsequently interviewed by the New York Times.
It was, well, a surreal sort of morning. It was snowing out of a clear sky, I was in a room full of veterans resolutely eating their lunch and ignoring the gadfly of a presidential candidate, and the press were all squished up at the sides of the room, with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
narahttbbs and I standing near the front between a bunch of guys with gigantic boom mics and a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. Huckabee came in, did the rounds, shook hands, breezed past people, and I was right in his line of sight, so he reached for my hand, said cheerfully, "I'm Mike Huckabee, it's good to meet you." I spluttered "You too!" - apparently my mother's voice in my head warning me to be polite applies even to right-wing Republicans - and things got steadily more surreal from then on.
There was this other guy, you see. Quite short, ginger, following Huckabee around. People were fighting to get close to him, to get their picture taken with him, and we weren't sure entirely who he was. Until, of course, one of the press happened to mention that it was Chuck Norris.
This guy. Yeah. Surreal. He got up and spoke, somewhat incoherently - I, in grammatical pedant mode, noted that he talked about "positiveness", what a wonderful neologism - about how great Huckabee was, and then the man himself got up and spoke. He didn't talk for very long. Mostly, he talked about veterans - their benefits and healthcare, whilst all the while the veterans themselves concentrated on their food and ignored him - and then he asked for questions, of which he only took two. The first was from the daughter, I think she was, of one of the veterans. Following whichnarahttbbs waved her hand about like crazy and Huckabee looked at us disapprovingly and said he'd take questions from the press later.
"We're not the press!" we said together, loud enough for the whole room to hear, so of course then he had to take my question. You were saying, I said, that the sacrifices the veterans made were bloody and enormous, and he agreed that yes, he did say that. Does that mean, I asked, you never want to take America to war again?
No, he said, he'd create an American military so strong that no one would actually take it on. (Like Chuck Norris, he said.) It reminded me vaguely of the Eisenhower rhetoric I had to read about for the Cold War paper, with the exception of course that Eisenhower was being disingenuous and Huckabee really didn't seem to be. A rote right-wing answer, of course, what I expected him to say - even though he did imply that the armed forces' sacrifices were too high, he couldn't admit the "no war" conclusion - but the interesting part was of course that he was saying it all directly to me. I asked a presidential candidate a question, and he had to answer me. Doesn't matter who it was, really, I think that's cool.
And that was the last question he'd take. The room then exploded into photo-opportunities and people milling about and the veterans quietly polishing off their dinners, but before I moved anywhere, a reporter wanted me to give me my name, where I'm from, what I thought of that answer. Who are you from, I wanted to know. The New York Times, he said. I was impressed. I don't think I'll ever be interviewed by them again.narahttbbs gave a very eloquent interview to NPR, in which she happily admitted she was a registered Democrat and steered the conversation over to universal healthcare legislation, which I liked a lot. (I'd taken off my Clinton campaign badge beforehand!)
A lot of people ended up asking me in the end, are you the woman who asked the question, and I gave my name to one or two others, and I really should try and read tomorrow's New York Times. It was definitely a fabulous experience to have had. The only thing I found disappointing was the actual lack of inflammatory rhetoric from Huckabee. Wrong target audience for it, I guess.
Also. Chuck Norris. Yeah. That's never going to get old.
It was, well, a surreal sort of morning. It was snowing out of a clear sky, I was in a room full of veterans resolutely eating their lunch and ignoring the gadfly of a presidential candidate, and the press were all squished up at the sides of the room, with
narahttbbs and I standing near the front between a bunch of guys with gigantic boom mics and a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. Huckabee came in, did the rounds, shook hands, breezed past people, and I was right in his line of sight, so he reached for my hand, said cheerfully, "I'm Mike Huckabee, it's good to meet you." I spluttered "You too!" - apparently my mother's voice in my head warning me to be polite applies even to right-wing Republicans - and things got steadily more surreal from then on.There was this other guy, you see. Quite short, ginger, following Huckabee around. People were fighting to get close to him, to get their picture taken with him, and we weren't sure entirely who he was. Until, of course, one of the press happened to mention that it was Chuck Norris.
This guy. Yeah. Surreal. He got up and spoke, somewhat incoherently - I, in grammatical pedant mode, noted that he talked about "positiveness", what a wonderful neologism - about how great Huckabee was, and then the man himself got up and spoke. He didn't talk for very long. Mostly, he talked about veterans - their benefits and healthcare, whilst all the while the veterans themselves concentrated on their food and ignored him - and then he asked for questions, of which he only took two. The first was from the daughter, I think she was, of one of the veterans. Following which
narahttbbs waved her hand about like crazy and Huckabee looked at us disapprovingly and said he'd take questions from the press later."We're not the press!" we said together, loud enough for the whole room to hear, so of course then he had to take my question. You were saying, I said, that the sacrifices the veterans made were bloody and enormous, and he agreed that yes, he did say that. Does that mean, I asked, you never want to take America to war again?
No, he said, he'd create an American military so strong that no one would actually take it on. (Like Chuck Norris, he said.) It reminded me vaguely of the Eisenhower rhetoric I had to read about for the Cold War paper, with the exception of course that Eisenhower was being disingenuous and Huckabee really didn't seem to be. A rote right-wing answer, of course, what I expected him to say - even though he did imply that the armed forces' sacrifices were too high, he couldn't admit the "no war" conclusion - but the interesting part was of course that he was saying it all directly to me. I asked a presidential candidate a question, and he had to answer me. Doesn't matter who it was, really, I think that's cool.
And that was the last question he'd take. The room then exploded into photo-opportunities and people milling about and the veterans quietly polishing off their dinners, but before I moved anywhere, a reporter wanted me to give me my name, where I'm from, what I thought of that answer. Who are you from, I wanted to know. The New York Times, he said. I was impressed. I don't think I'll ever be interviewed by them again.
narahttbbs gave a very eloquent interview to NPR, in which she happily admitted she was a registered Democrat and steered the conversation over to universal healthcare legislation, which I liked a lot. (I'd taken off my Clinton campaign badge beforehand!)A lot of people ended up asking me in the end, are you the woman who asked the question, and I gave my name to one or two others, and I really should try and read tomorrow's New York Times. It was definitely a fabulous experience to have had. The only thing I found disappointing was the actual lack of inflammatory rhetoric from Huckabee. Wrong target audience for it, I guess.
Also. Chuck Norris. Yeah. That's never going to get old.
