or those turned off and tuned out in this era of meticulously scripted political conventions, the Aug. 7 issue of US News & World Report offers some stirring nostalgia. Senior writer Roger Simon has produced an engaging history of the 1948 Philadelphia conventions, the first party gatherings invaded by the glare of live TV cameras.
That year, genuine convention tension abounded. Republican nominee Thomas Dewey beat Harold Stassen after three ballots and Democratic Senator Alben Barkley earned a surprise vice presidential nod from Harry Truman after delivering a stirring 68-minute speech from memory.
TV was young and innocent in those days. Instead of blowing off the conventions for prime-time fare, NBC pre-empted its new ''Texaco Star Theatre,'' starring Milton Berle. And Time magazine opined that the ''telecameras'' actually made the convention rituals seem ''bigger and more exciting than they actually were.''
Still, some pols quickly mastered the new medium. Truman selected a telegenic white suit, white shirt, and black tie that the New York Times described as ''the best masculine garb for the video cameras.'' To demonstrate the high price of food, one speaker brandished a ''dripping raw steak'' for the cameras.
By 1952, as Simon notes, CBS had opened a school teaching pols how to behave on TV and as quickly as it had started, the era of convention spontaneity began drawing to a close.
As Republicans gather in Philadelphia determined to end the Clinton-Gore era, it's worth checking out the magazine that launched the conservative media campaign against the president.
Long before conservatism was synonymous with compassion, The American Spectator was probably, along with Rush Limbaugh, the most influential conservative media force of the early '90s. Its signature piece was a 1993 ''Troopergate'' story alleging that state troopers procured women for then-governor William Clinton and introducing America to a mysterious ''Paula.'' (Today, better known as Paula Jones.)
But times have changed. In a 1998 Esquire article, ''Troopergate'' author David Brock apologized to Clinton for rummaging around in his personal life. Colin Powell is now lecturing GOP delegates on the merits of affirmative action. And the Spectator, whose circulation is down from over 200,000 to roughly 110,000, seems to have lost altitude.
The magazine's July/August cover story on ''Bill's Kids'' tries to work itself into a lather over the politicization of AmeriCorps, Clinton's national service program that ''operates more like a federal relief program for nightclub comics.'' The Spectator makes the case that the program - with a budget of about a half billion dollars - is little more than a Democratic scam, recruiting families to get subsidized health insurance, steering folks to the welfare office, and working to organize the gay community.
''If AmeriCorps helped at a barn-raising, members would later claim not just to have helped someone build a barn - but swear they also redeemed the person's self-esteem, gave him a purpose in life, and introduced him to multiculturalism and diversity,'' writes author James Bovard.
It's a good line. But a piece whacking AmeriCorps suggests that after eight years, the conservative press is finally running out of Clinton ammo. It's time for a new administration.
The double July 31 issue of Sports Illustrated devotes 74 pages to an irresistible ''Where Are They Now?'' feature tracking down some of sports's former bit characters.
These days transgendered tennis star Renee Richards, 65, is a successful Park Avenue pediatric ophthalmologist. The two 17-year-old chuckleheads who ran onto the field to brazenly accost Henry Aaron after he broke Babe Ruth's home run record in 1974 are mildly repentant 44-year-olds. (They did spend a few hours in jail that night for their antics.) Of local interest are the fates of two former Red Sox flakes from the '70s. Outfielder Bernie Carbo has found religion and runs the Diamond Club Ministry in Mobile, Ala. And ''Spaceman'' Bill Lee is a Vermont farmer who happily describes himself as a ''Rastafarian-Buddhist-Communist-Roman Catholic.''
Atlanta Braves reliever John Rocker, whose bigoted outburst in Sports Illustrated sent his life into a downward spiral, is the cover boy for the Aug. 7 issue of ESPN, The Magazine.
The difference between the two sports magazines is largely generational, roughly the equivalent of the Beatles versus Metallica. Sports Illustrated, for the boomers, is literate and leisurely. ESPN, for the X-ers, is jangly and visually jarring.
I'll betray my age by choosing Sports Illustrated writing over this ESPN passage any day: ''Twitching and spasming, a convulsion in cleats, Rocker runs full throttle toward center stage, scorching the earth en route, a lit fuse looking for a place to explode.''
Give Rocker credit for learning one thing, however. He declined to be interviewed for his own cover story.
