Karen Bass and Holly Mitchell, two of the region’s favorite politicians, threw a party last evening at the Vets Auditorium that was a head-scratcher.
Flamboyantly billed as both a tribute to women veterans and a means to assist them in finding jobs or housing, the incredibly popular event quickly became diffused in confusing, unwieldy directions.
Whether any good emerged from it — beyond spruced up feelings — is debatable.
With U.S. Rep. Ms. Bass (D-Culver City) and state Assemblyperson Ms. Mitchell (D-Culver City) headlining the program, it attracted what must have been the largest crowd in the half-century history of the Vets and the Rotunda Room. The room was so jammed that only every other person was allowed to breathe, a cynic cracked.
Mostly, it looked and felt like Girls Night Out. Oldtimers might have called it a hen party — acres of chatter. If there were accomplishments, they were invisible.
With Ms. Bass and Ms. Mitchell in the room, the event was lengthy on self-congratulatory messages.
Backpatting was popular. While there were promises aplenty to, by golly, do something about veterans, especially women veterans, who desperately need day-to-day help, nothing further happened.
They just seemed to be winging a laudatory idea without a map in mind.
But with the two politicians at the helm, the evening was rife with imprecision and abstraction.
Food the Main Attraction?
The tipoff that the program was vaguely organized came at the appointed hour of 5. The mistress of ceremonies invited the full house to tie on a feed bag. They took her seriously. For the next 45 minutes, women assembled skyscraper portions of rich foods on paper plates. If Jenny Craig had been in the room, she would have fainted. Instantly, the Rotunda Room morphed into Wendy’s or Carl’s Jr.
Since the tribute/meeting was called for two hours and the first 45 minutes were eaten up by eaters, the event began to crumble.
Over crowd-munching a few minutes after 5, Ms. Mitchell introduced Assemblyman Mike Davis (D-Inglewood) who made one of rare solid contributions. He spoke of his major legislative accomplishment, Assembly Bill 1084, which allows veterans more latitude in finding housing, amending six provisions of the California Veterans Home Loan program.
Both Ms. Bass and Ms. Mitchell spoke encouragingly about the aspects of President Obama’s American Jobs Act that putatively will aid veterans. But their language was amorphous.
The evening sounds as if it resulted from a spark of an idea that sounded catchy at the time and was produced without much consideration for solidity.
There was not a script within miles of the Rotunda Room. The program tumbled along without direction or leadership or focus.
The first military honoree was a worthy young woman named Lauren Johnson from Ms. Bass’s office, not an ideal relationship for starting the program.
But it was worse than that. Ms. Bass had no idea — ! — how long Ms. Johnson had worked for her.
She bumbled. She guessed. She thrashed around. If it had been a longevity issue of 25 years or 30 years, it may have been understandable.
But when Ms. Johnson finally came to her boss’s aid, she said “Two months.”
That did not help Ms. Bass’s credibility.
Ms. Mitchell seemed more comfortable discussing the military. Ms. Bass acknowledged a lack of familiarity.
The well-meaning but seemingly unprepared ladies accepted questions from the audience. Unable to promise specific action, they said they would get back to the people.
And the rest of the night kind of floated away. But the audience seemed to feel good as it left for home, which may have been the goal.
