EDITOR-AT-LARGE

History is what we make it. And when history promises to make money, it’s time for a memorial. People love standing where big events happened. So when Fox News calls Café Espresso an historic site, who can argue. Especially if that site is in our own back yard.

LET'S PRESERVE "THE PORTSMOUTH MOMENT"

Historic events in Portsmouth are few and far between these days. So when the Port City makes international news, it is our civic duty to hype that event into the history books. I am speaking, of course, about "The Portsmouth Moment" in which presidential candidate Hillary Clinton expressed a moment of emotion at Café Espresso. Newspapers around the world covered the story and pundits debated ad nauseum whether the incident was responsible for Clinton’s win in the NH Primary the next day.

If Clinton wins the Democratic nomination or becomes president, Portsmouth will be enshrined as the place it all began. If she loses, people will say – Hillary never should have cried in Portsmouth. Either way, we win.

So without further ado, I hereby suggest that all patriotic Americans chip in to buy a brass plaque to be mounted outside the now-historic Café Espresso. The minute I finish this column, I will send restaurant owner Dave Hadwen a check for $10 to start the ball rolling. Stephen Fowle, editor and publisher of the NH Gazette has agreed to send $20. I called David to ask if he liked the idea. He loved it. A serious all-weather plaque with raised letters can cost $1,000, so we need your dough. I suggest something like this:

CAFÉ ESPRESSO
Site of the Historic
"PORTSMOUTH MOMENT"

On this spot on January 7, 2008,
Senator Hillary Clinton almost cried
while running for president of the
United States. Clinton "teared up"
with emotion in response to a
question by Marianne Pernold-Young,
then won the NH Primary the next day.
The event was blown way out of
proportion by media pundits.

History, I have learned, is what you make it. Reporters have already compared "The Portsmouth Moment" to Edmund Muskie emoting over the infamous "Canuck Letter" or Howard Dean’s scream in 2004. Both events were largely manufactured by the press, but then so was Plymouth Rock. The more you repeat the story, the more real it seems. Think about that, the next time you’re reading the somber inscription on some ancient greenish monument. Creating a plaque ensures that historians, like me, will gorge up the event for centuries to come.

Only 15 women and two men were invited to the breakfast chat early on the morning of January 7. But there were 40 or 50 reporters and camera people there to document it. The local Portsmouth daily, unfortunately, left Café Espresso early for another assignment and missed the crucial moment. But it didn’t last long.

"She was Hillary Clinton the woman for six or seven seconds," Marianne told me on the phone recently, "then she caught herself and went back to being Hillary the politician."

Marianne found herself inundated by press from CNN to BBC to media in her home country of Austria. Returning home after the rally at Café Espresso, she found three television reporters with satellite feed trucks camped on her front lawn. The press especially enjoyed her candid revelation that "the woman whom made Hillary cry" actually voted for Barack Obama in the primary. She didn’t really make Hillary cry, but history likes to round off the hard edges of the truth.

"A lot of the media think I’m a plant," she says wryly. "I’m not a plant! But if I were -- would I tell anybody?"

Marianne was once a beltway insider herself. She was a Wwhite House photographer during the Jimmy Carter Administration. These days she is a fine art photographer. I have many of her photos on my web site and one on my office wall. In fact, I first learned about "The Portsmouth Moment" when a reporter from the London Guardian contacted me to help her find Marianne. But Marianne was so swamped by requests for email interviews, that she turned off the CONTACT button on her own web site.

"It was wild and it was fun," Marianne says, as the press inquiries continue to pour in weeks after the event. But the really interesting part of the story is how one silly little question and one tiny little response could set off such a cascade of reaction. If nothing else, "The Portsmouth Moment" is an historic example of how silly we all are.

And so that we do not forget, send your nondeductible contribution to The Portsmouth Moment Plaque, c/o Café Espresso, 738 Islington St, Portsmouth, NH 03801. Let’s make fun of history, before it makes fun of us.  

© Copyright 2008 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.This article appears in print in the NH Gazette.

OUTSIDE LINK: Cafe Espresso official web site