Heading home from the UpTake.org citizen video journalism training today, I went from MPR (pledge week) to minor Patti Smith (a corrupted disc of "Trampin" I had to eject) to (God help me) 1280 the Patriot — just in time to hear King Banaian and the Republican operative who pretends to be a reasonable guy on the radio.
They were reminiscing about the Wellstone memorial service and waxing about how it had been a huge mistake by the DFL, and how it had created a new groundswell of outraged "Wellstone Republicans" that snatched the election away from the Democrats to elect Sen. Norm Coleman.
I make it a policy not to drive while cell phoning, cell phone while irritated, or to call in to conservative talk radio, period. But I was I tempted.
The un-King guy claimed to have watched the service again today, just to refresh himself on what a terrible miscalculation it all was.
I doubt he watched the whole thing, just like the rest of America who gets their news and experience filtered.
There's no doubt the service as it was reported and spun hurt the Democrats and catapulted Mayor Hockey Arena into the Senate. But the claim or implication that this was some error or miscalculation by the DFL is simply wrong. It's just more GOP recasting of authentic experience into crass political terms.
The Wellstone service was a memorial event for those who wanted to pay honor to the family and Paul's memory. It was big. It was televised on a public channel. It was organized by family members, not the party. Because Paul's life was about politics, the memorial was inevitably about politics. Because Paul was passionate and inspired passion, it was inevitably passionate.
We should all be so lucky that our lives are so clear and so worthy of love.
If my service were to be televised, I hope it will be an affront to over-produced music — and a celebration of love, good writing, humor and good beer. But it probably won't involve my politics, because that's only a small part of my life.
With Wellstone, it was inevitable.
Yet, if you go back and look at the entire service searching for the defining Rick Kahn appeal to preserve the Wellstone legacy, you will have to fast forward through a ton of folk music, family remembrances and sweet, tearful recollections about others who died. Pretty much like most services I've attended.
But Paul was a public figure, and that brought the cameras, the colleagues and the semi-celebrities.
When my father died years ago of a self-inflicted gunshot, it was a big event in my Colorado community. Not on a Wellstone scale, but big enough that one of the local radio stations broadcast the service for those who couldn't attend or fit in the church. As one who spoke and sang, I can promise you: Not once did the broadcast or any political implications enter my mind.
My entire focus was on honoring a very good man who died tragically and on trying to extend comfort to people who had good reason to love him as well.
To imply otherwise about the Wellstone event is simply contemptible.
