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To Our Readers

By John Flanagan

Saturday, September 2, 2000

A bump with greatness

I have an 8-by-10 glossy color photo of me in a suit standing between Al and Tipper Gore. They are grinning professionally and making firm political eye contact with the camera. I have a totally goofy expression on my face.

The occasion was a spring 1996 reception for the American Society of Newspaper Editors at the vice presidential mansion -- a large, homey, white frame house on a grassy hill outside downtown Washington, D.C. The Gores had been in residence for four years.

More than 200 of us editors were herded like cats off a fleet of buses into an unruly line that wound up the hill to a backdoor, through the vice presidential den and into a front parlor. There, we each met the Second Couple one-on-two, as it were.

Courtesy of John Flanagan
There's more grimace than grin on the face of Star-Bulletin
editor and publisher John Flanagan, wedged between Vice
President Al Gore and his wife Tipper during a seconds-
long meeting in 1996. Flanagan was part of an assembly
line photo-shoot during which 200 newspaper editors
had their photos taken with the Gores.

Not surprisingly to me, the house bore Tipper's stamp more than Al's. She's an accomplished photographer and her candid blow-ups of handsome Gore children at play hung on the walls. Her complete drum set dominated the living room: cymbals, high-hat, snare, tom-toms, cowbell -- the works.

I remember a digital display on a bookshelf recording the exact time from an atomic clock at the nearby Naval Observatory, but no other trappings of power. A normal, well-to-do American home you might think, if not for several hundred mostly middle-aged, white male newspaper editors standing like pre-school kids waiting to see Santa Claus. It was a surreal experience.

Today, we're in the homestretch of the 2000 presidential race. Remembering my meeting with the Gores four years ago, I'm utterly impressed by the sheer endurance required to get into and stay in that game.

Back to the photo: To take 200 individual, grip-and-grin photos in 90 minutes, there's no time for small talk, no time for "stand a little closer."

I shake hands, say "pleased to meet you," and boom! -- Tipper gives me a totally unexpected shove with her hip, she and Al smile at the camera, I look startled and the flash goes pop!

Next, please.

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John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.