Is it the weekend yet? Can I stop avoiding the television? Has Obama's speech for the ages come and gone?
Good. I am as tired as a human being can possibly be of the interminable spectacle known as the Democratic Convention in Denver. Had it not been pre-planned and tightly arranged right down to denying the delegates their moment in the sun to voice their votes, it might have been worth watching.
But this convention was anything but spontaneous, it merely corroborated what many Americans of all political persuasions have been saying about the Democratic nomination process for months now - it was and is a media event. The Associated Press declared Obama the winner of the Democratic primaries before the voting was over, and omitting that Obama never got a clear majority of committed delegates.
Hillary Clinton's forces never gave up their fight for a floor vote right until the very minute that the former first lady used a parliamentary tactic to suspend voting at the convention and declare Obama the winner. That was just after several states that had voted overwhelmingly for Clinton bypassed the count so his delegate count would never been seen on national television as trailing Clinton's.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is NOT democracy.
The buzz this morning was supposed to be about Obama's speech for the ages. But John McCain, who is the acknowledged Republican candidate and won't be subjected to a floor fight in Minneapolis St. Paul next week, has successfully usurped Obama by focusing media attention on his coming Vice President selection.
FOX News and CNN were both giving far more coverage to McCain's possible VP selection being one of the women I wrote about yesterday, and as of mid-morning had eliminated all the male front-runner who have been all the rage for the past several weeks,and declared the Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska is McCain's pick.
That not only is a great move for the Republican Party, it is a great move for America, and knocked discussions of Obama's speech right off the airwaves. Goodbye bounce. FOX was giving 100 percent coverage to McCain's coming announcement.
Speaking of FOX, there are some things I do in my life that could come down to routines. One of them is watching Special Report with Brit Hume at 6 p.m., because I trust the man and consider him to be the premier television anchor man on the American media scene today.
That being said, even though Hume was on vacation for two weeks, with Bret Baier ably substituting for him, and even though I was one of those FOX viewers who was waiting for Hume's return, I stopped watching his show during the convention.
Note, I did not stop watching when Bret Baier substituted, because Baier as I noted above is a tremendously competent substitute for Hume and probably is in the running to replace Hume if, as was reported a few weeks back, Hume retires at the end of his current contract.
This had nothing to do with Hume, or the panel of commentators I enjoy watching each night on the second half of his show. This had everything to do with the fact that his show was broadcast from the convention and it was convention overkill. Every bleeding nuance of every bleeding movement by every bleeding delegate, candidate, spokesman, wannabe, hanger-on, and so-called insider was interviewed ad nauseum all day, every day, and I simply could not stand another second of it!
What did we get from all this? Who knows? I didn't bother watching Obama's speech because I certainly am NOT undecided about who will get my vote and there is nothing he can say that would change my mind. I was moved, truly, no kidding, by Juan Williams's emotional comments when Obama actually got the formal nomination, due to the historic significance of a black man being nominated to run for president by a major American political party.
But that guy? There have to be at least a thousand African-Americans or black Americans if you prefer, in both parties who are better qualified, have more experience, and have fewer skeletons in their closets than Barack Obama!
As a creation of the MainStream Media there is far more about Obama that we don't know than we do, and the glimpses we are seeing aren't reassuring. But, that will change very soon now, won't it?
Labor Day is next Monday, which signals the beginning of the fall political campaigns which means things will get really active, very soon. So maybe I can return to some of my routines. But for now, the weekend awaits, the Dem convention is over, and I for one am tremendously relieved.
Friday, August 29, 2008
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