Senator George Clooney Interrogates Nick Denton - Part One
The Senate Chamber was filled to the brim, every available four-square foot space of carpet was burdened with a human being, from reporters to congressional aides to college students to the lucky tourist who happened to sneak in. There were a good dozen tripods hoisting video cameras, as well as thrice that number of photographers wielding still cameras with protruding white zoom lenses. The rows of seats behind the long witness table were buzzing with chatter as the senators took their places on the dais, the center being chaired by Senator George Clooney.
At the witness table sat Nick Denton. To his right was Hillary, Denton’s attorney. Nick was nervous, but then how could one not be in the klieg lights of Washington and Hollywood simultaneously. Nick had spent years building a mini-empire of blogs and other internet watering holes, many of which relied on the support and participation of the public. Nick had a nose for good writing and for attracting insiders who were willing to open windows to social networks that had previously remained behind closed doors. Nick thrusted these no-names into the forefront, giving them an audience and a platform and a mission, ranging from politics to celebrities to gadgets. If there was a demographic, Nick targeted it, staffed it, financed it on the cheap, and built a web audience slowly, steadily, until the site earned money. Nick had accumulated enough profitable websites to generate him a sizeable revenue stream, making him something of a Silicon Valley darling, though on the East Coast thousands of miles from the googlers and yahoos.
With success comes media attention, and although Nick liked people to know about him, he did not savor the spotlight. He preferred controlling the spotlight. Not today. Today the spotlight handles were firmly in Senator Clooney’s grip.
“This is not fun, not even a little,” whispered Nick to Hillary as he examined Senator George Clooney organizing a pile of papers and chatting with a senatorial aide. It irritated Nick that Clooney looked as good in his fifties as he did in his forties. This was particularly so because Nick had spent the last decade sitting too much in a chair. He carried a little too much weight, and he probably looked dreadful compared to the dashing Senator who had cultivated a love with the camera during his two decades as an actor.
“Witch hunts are never fun,” said Hillary, a 38-year old blond beauty from a midtown Manhattan law firm that spent several years early in her career in Washington, DC. She knew the ropes down here in the Beltway, but her primary asset, Nick Denton sometimes thought, were her looks. Plus her raspy voice no doubt caused by a lifelong weekend indulgence with marijuana. Nick was of two minds about his attorney. The drug use was cool, sort of, because she so effortlessly was able to weave weed into her busy legal life. But then, he couldn’t help think that she had a lose screw somewhere, a hole in her brain that was burned out. Hillary’s parents were both former hippies, and the lifestyle apparently had been passed down from one generation to the next in Hillary’s case.
Nick jumped at the sound of wood hitting wood. Senator Clooney had slammed the gavel down on the block that sat on the counter.
“Let me welcome Nicholas Denton to the Hill, and I can speak on behalf of my colleagues that we all thank you for agreeing to appear before the Senate Committee on the Preservation of Privacy,” said Senator Clooney with a charismatic smile.
Nick nodded his head, and with each nod a sick pain gurgled in his stomach. Hillary patted the back of Nick’s right hand with her left hand to comfort Nick. It was not doing any good. It only made him feel more self conscious, thinking that Hillary heard Nick’s rumbling gastrointestinal tract.
“Mr. Denton, do you have an opening statement?” asked Senator Clooney.
To Be Continued.
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[...] Continued From Yesterday. [...]
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