I got through the heavily fortified perimeter around the Excel Convention Centre for the first time yesterday. There are two passes – one gets you into the actual auditorium where the magic happens, and one is just for the sprawling media metropolis next door. I just had the media pass, but hanging around there long enough I was able to talk to an interesting range of Republican bigwigs and smaller-time delegates and talking heads.
The first floor is dedicated to talk radio and I spotted John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and an extremist even within the neoconservative movement. The Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, attempted a citizens arrest on Bolton when he came to speak to the Hay-on-Wye festival in May. As he walked to the Convention entrance I asked him about the controversy during his visit to UK. “What was the controversy?” he asked incredulous so I told him what I was talking about. “I thought it was immature at best and really kind of threatening in some respects,” he replied, “because it respects an unwillingness to tolerate other points of view and I think it’s very disturbing to see it in Britain, and I was happy he was not able to arrest me because the whole thing was a sort of juvenile exercise.”
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