Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"In a move that is sure to ignite a firestorm of speculation about who would be Secretary of State in a second Obama administration, President Barack Obama has chosen Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to deliver a key national security themed speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention. An Obama campaign official told The Cable Tuesday that Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a highly rumored candidate to replace Hillary Clinton in Foggy Bottom when she steps down next year, will headline a special segment of the program on Thursday, Sept. 6, focusing on national security. The Sept. 6 program will take place at Bank of America stadium and will conclude with Obama's speech accepting his party's nomination for a second term. The move is a reflection of the Obama campaign's growing confidence in the area of national security versus a candidate in Mitt Romney who is seen as being light on national security and foreign policy experience and whose campaign has deprioritized discussing national security in an effort to keep the focus on Obama's economic record ... Kerry has always denied he is lobbying for Clinton's job, but insiders say he is on a short list along with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. Rice is rumored to be the front runner, due in part to her longtime personal relationship with Obama, which dates back to his time as a senator. Donilon's chances are said to have diminished since he became the focus of accusations that the Obama White House has been leaking classified national security information for political purposes. Those accusations could make Donilon's Senate confirmation difficult. Rice and Donilon are not speaking at the convention, but that's not an indication of their stature or chances for promotion. Sitting national security officials aren't permitted to engage directly in election-related political activities. The Kerry speech in Charlotte is also a chance for the Obama campaign to push back against the groups of special operations veterans that are mobilizing a campaign to attack Obama's national security record by pointing to the leaks and accusing Obama of spiking the football after the killing of Osama bin Laden." (ForeignPolicy)

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"The Republican National Convention seems a strange place for a press-shy billionaire benefactor of iconoclastic libertarian causes that have vexed GOP leaders — including the anti-establishment tea party movement. Yet there was David Koch sitting on the convention floor Tuesday, smiling broadly, applauding — even clapping to a rendition of the Isley Brothers’ hit 'Shout' after the roll call vote that formalized Mitt Romney’s nomination — and making polite chit-chat with a steady stream of well-wishers. I love the introductions,' Koch said to an old friend named Ron Gidwitz, referring to the short and braggadocios floor speeches by delegation chairs during the roll call. 'I love the sense of humor,' he added to Gidwitz, an Illinois investor and delegate. Even though David Koch’s equally politically active brother Charles has kept his distance from the organized GOP, a number of operatives in Tampa told POLITICO that David Koch’s presence as a delegate from New York here sent a strong message that the Kochs’ expanding political operation is becoming a more reliable adjunct of the Republican Party. 'You most certainly can read that into it,' said one GOP money man, who had previously described the relationship between Koch World and the Rove groups as somewhere between rivalry and collaboration. It’s a shift that has far-reaching implications for national politics in November and beyond." (Politico)

"A lovely warm, sunny Summer day, yesterday in New York. I went down to Michael’s for lunch, and although most tables were occupied, it felt like the clientele had already left for the long holiday weekend. Last night I went with a friend to the Delacorte Theater in Central Park to see the Public Theater’s production of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s 'Into the Woods.' We’re not allowed to take photos in the amphitheatre – unfortunately – so I cannot show you the intriguing set of wood and trees (with the orchestra concealed right behind it). It was a perfect night – with the temperature hovering around 70 degrees and an almost full moon rising – as the show got underway. This moon, the second within the same month, is known as the Blue Moon. It is a rare occurrence (hence the name – as in 'Once in a blue moon ...') that will not occur again until July 2012. Shakespeare in the Park is free although it's "first come, first served": you have to go and wait in line for your seats. By eight o’clock the theater was full with a large contingent of twenty-somethings in the crowd, which is generally unusual for New York theater, although these theater-goers are just as serious and maybe even more receptive. Also in the crowd last night was Mr. Sondheim himself." (NYSocialDiary)

"'We built it.' That’s been pretty much the meme du jour at the RNC yesterday, today, and most likely through the rest of the convention. After going through Baghdad Green Zone-like security procedures to get into the Tampa Bay Times Forum—highlighted by bomb-sniffing dogs—you are met with a ring of bright glowing signs saying 'We Built It' in white type on a red background that encircle the entire convention floor at the.  'We built it,' said one RNC speaker after another, all to resounding applause. 'We built it,' chanted thousands of the delegates. 'We Built It' read thousands of posters. There were even iPhone cases, as reported elsewhere in VF Daily, in a variation on the theme, proclaiming 'Built by US,' and they were flying off the shelves in the convention’s RNC gift shops, at $40 a pop. But for all the hoopla, there were just a couple of problems with the GOP theme. For one thing, who built it? Who was responsible for the “We Built It' slogan? Not the GOP, as it turns out. In fact, it was put together by none other than Fox News. As the liberal watchdog group Media Matters first reported, Fox was the first to pull the line from a July 13th speech by President Obama, taking Obama’s words 'you didn’t build that' out of context by omitting a few key sentences: 'If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.'  On July 17th, Romney repeated the phrase, and Fox itself repeated the 'you didn’t build that' attack on Obama in various forms over the last six weeks. Needless to say, when convention viewers saw the snippet of Obama saying, 'you didn’t build that,' the context was similarly omitted." (VanityFair)

"In 2009, D.T. Max published a long piece about David Foster Wallace, and his suicide, in The New Yorker. The project grew into the biography Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. In the final months of the book's completion, through a stroke of incredible luck, I had the opportunity to help Max as a research assistant. Biography, it turns out, is complicated, wrenching work, particularly when your subject inspires the kind of devotion Wallace can, and where the end of a life comes in the form his did. With the book's release today, I wanted to talk to Max about the process that went into its research and writing. Granted, it's a strange thing to be interviewed by someone with whom you've worked for several months already—but he was willing, and over the past few days, we had this exchange by email." (TheAwl)