Thursday, August 28, 2008

DNC

I don't know if it's a case of "good ole days" syndrome or what, but political conventions these days are totally unwatchable. Even in my younger days, I had a basic knowledge that they were choreographed and dictated to, or by, television. But as time as has gone by and the spontaneity levels have decreased, it has gotten to the point of the absurd. The best part was always the roll-call. Now, it's not even covered by the networks. Did it even happen? I didn't even see "highlights" of it during the whopping hour of coverage on ABC. Speeches are timed to the minute and you can tell when the speakers have gotten the word to wrap it up because their delivery gets quicker and faster the the pauses for applause decrease. I've watched a total of maybe 30 minutes so far and I'm surprised I even made it that long. Here is what I have heard from 95% of the speeches I've seen:

Blah blah blah global warming blah blah blah health care blah blah blah change blah blah blah change blah blah blah borrowing money from the Chinese to buy oil from the Middle East (I literally heard that sentence 3 times by 3 different speakers Tues night) blah blah blah working people blah blah blah middle class blah blah blah change....

I planed on watching Hillary, just to see how much "support" she would give to Obama, but I could only last about 5 minutes. It was a broken record of "me's". I missed most of Bill last night, but I did see what I thought was a great line in his speech...

"...People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power..."

That one line, to me, describes the biggest difference between the parties. Listen to the right wing radio hacks and they all believe in the "democracy by force" doctrine. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan - don't talk or negotiate, invade or threaten to. I'm not planiing on watching Obama tonight, but I'm sure I'll flip over a couple of times just to check him out.

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

CSPAN gives a much better feel for the event, since it's gavel to gavel. Saw the roll-call there yesterday late afternoon. They followed the roll until Obama was just shy of the total needed, then whichever state was up "passed" to Illinois which then passed to New York. Then Hillary, on behalf of the NY delegation, called for the nomination to be decided by acclamation, rather than finishing the roll call. This was supposed to be some kind of unifiying gesture. Struck me as weird and unsatisfying. Another tidbit that you could see on CSPAN that might not have been covered by others: the house band has a sense of humor. They played Bill Clinton off the stage with "Addicted to Love". I've never been much of a Bill Clinton fan, but his speech last night was excellent, cataloging the effects of Republican policies since 2001. I thought Biden and Kerry did a good job last night too. Schweitzer's speech on Tues seemed good too, but I didn't see much of it.

Anonymous said...

It's now "climate change" not global warming. Al said so.