Bill Clinton on Reality

Our Web site was broken this morning, so Mike Seely was unable to file this report earlier:

"After touching down at Sea-Tac Airport at approximately 6:45 p.m., former President Bill Clinton whipped through a $250-a-head fund-raiser at the Convention Center for U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and a discreet high-roller event at the Triple Door before taking the stage at Benaroya Hall to raise ducats for U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott's ongoing First Amendment battle with Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner.

"Predictably, Clinton blew everyone who preceded him—including Dr. Jim—off the stage, save for Seattle Weekly intern Katie Becker's seventh-grade sweetheart, alto sax virtuoso Ben Roseth. His central argument—Clinton's, not Roseth's—was that on issues ranging from the environment to the estate tax, the Republicans in control are ideological yes men for whom 'facts are irrelevant' and life in 'the reality-based world' is for wimps. 'They feel that argument is the providence of weak minds,' said the ex-prez, clad in a light gray suit and coral colored tie. 'It's really just a narrow slice of the Republican Party who've run this country for the past five years ... guys like me—white, southern Protestants surrounded by their ideological soulmates.'

"Clinton saved his First Amendment defense of McD until the very end of his half-hour talk, instead coming back time and again to global warming: 'This is not rocket science. This is a bird's nest in the ground. ... Now that's something we oughta give tax breaks for.'"

Mike continues: "For better or worse, Bubba's still the Democratic Party's lone true rock star, but he wasn't the only rocker to seize the mike last night. Warmup act Children of the Revolution, a Seattle-based world music band which the program said 'weaves effortlessly through rock, flamenco, ska, Greek, Turkish, salsa, R&B, Middle-Eastern and even hip-hop,' featured 'a violinist whose high-energy stage antics rival Pete Townshend.' (They didn't.) Even weirder were the liner notes of smooth jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan, who's working to popularize a concept called 'Sonification.'

"'Audio is a far superior vehicle for understanding the passage of time,' writes Jordan, a solo multi-stylist who preceded Children of the Revolution onstage. 'Take the amoritization schedule of a 30-year mortgage, for example. It would take about six minutes to "play" that mortgage. A person could hear how long they would be paying interest before they started paying principle.'

"No word yet on whether McD intends to introduce legislation calling for widespread adoption of Sonicfication next session."