The traditional media has become irrelevant. Only the non-traditional C-SPAN showed the convention speeches (all of them) in their entirely, without commentary by bloviators.
On cable, (CNN and MSNBC in particular - FOX is banned in my home) the blowhard commentators thought we would rather hear them than the speeches. And they had to dissect and prognosticate and hand-wring and criticize. And they have been wrong about everything.
On MSNBC, which is the station I watch the most, they are truly missing the guiding maternal presence of Tim Russert, who was the one to soothe wounded egos and keep everybody happy. I have seen at least three examples of major or minor confrontations betweeen anchors and commentators on MSNBC over the past few days. Joe Scarborough felt dissed by Keith Olbermann one night, and he reacted visibly, and then got even the next morning by disagreeing with every comment KO made the night before about the speeches. Then he lit into David Schuster over the Iraq War and when he ran out of arguments on his side, he attacked Schuster for missing three appearances on Morning Jo(k)e because he "overslept." While JS lit into Schuster, Stepford Wife Mika and two guests looked at the floor, too terrified to intervene. After that, Mika got fully into Stepford Wife mode. Later that day, Chris Matthews took offense and acted snippy over some way KO moved his hand. They looked like a bunch of schoolyard bullies in a pissing contest. It was the most juvenile thing I've seen on television since Zel Miller challenged Chris Matthews to a duel four years ago.
But the most amusing thing about Morning Jo(k)e is how wrong they have been on absolutely everything, not only at this convention, but throughout the whole primary.
They were sure Jeremiah Wright would destroy Obama, even as they did all they could to play and replay the tapes and smear him. They were certain Hillary would overcome Obama's lead and become the nominee, even though she actually was mathematically defeated since about February. At the convention, they did everything they could to create controversy for Obama. They predicted Hillary's speech would be all about her, and then when it was mostly about her support for Obama, they criticized it for not going far enough to attack McCain. They predicted Bill wouldn't be able to get his ego out of the way and would obsess about his own time as president. When he didn't, they said he didn't go far enough to attack McCain. "Not enough red meat" is the mantra they repeated. Joe Biden's speech, they said, wasn't quite up to par. And they praised John Kerry for giving one of the most "red meat" speeches, and when they realized that they had not played it in real time, they blamed the Obama campaign for not having the speeches lined up one after another to "force them" to cover it.
These guys are total and complete clowns who don't even see the absurdity of their comments.
They are doing nothing but following Republican talking points. Had the convention been all "red meat" as Pat Buchanan and Jo(k)e Scarborough said it should have been, they would have talked about the danger of the perception of Obama as the scary angry black man. Had Clinton and Clinton spent all their time trashing McCain, they would have said they didn't focus on Obama enough, or how dare they diss a POW - they're getting into dangerous territory of being unpatriotic.
Now they're making fun of the Roman columns at Mile High Stadium where Obama will speak tonight, although they were shown pictures of the Roman columns at Bush's 2000 convention and had to back off a bit. But they are still saying going there is a mistake because the Clintons "owned the convention hall" and Obama should speak there to take it back. They also say he will play right into the "celebrity" ads McCain has run, and he should change his plans at the last minute.
Tomorrow, when they are proven wrong again, they will find something else to criticize.
They are flailing. They know television news stations are dying because other media sources, most notably the internet, are doing a better job of disseminating information than they are. So they have to create controversy and say outrageous things in the hope that someone, anyone, will tune in to their network instead of C-SPAN.
They gave away this desperation over the past few days on Morning Jo(k)e when they continued the blogger bashing they have been doing for months. JS, who like John McCain, may not even know where the computer "on" button is, insists all bloggers "eat cheetos, worship Star Wars, and live in their mother's basement."
When they sent their little pet Willie Geist out to talk to bloggers he got some funny answers like "my mother doesn't have a basement" and "I've never watched Star Wars" and "I don't eat anything while I blog as I don't want crumbs in my keyboard." It was an amusing segment, but it proved my point. These media personalities are irrelevant and will soon be relegated to the past because they fail to see the new media that is replacing them and the seriousness and intelligence of those who have embraced the new mode of communication.
One glaring piece of evidence that this is true is that two of the main personalities on the morning show, Pat Buchanan and Jo(k)e Scarborough, neither of whom understands the power of the internet, have condemned Democrats every day for not ripping the guts out of the Republicans for the tragedies of the past eight years. What they fail to understand is that Democrats don't have to be reminded of this disastrous administration because that is old news. We have been documenting this and discussing it for eight years. Even independents and republicans don't have to be reminded as the Bush administration's negatives are around 80%.
It isn't necessary to rip the guts out of this administration - Obama and Biden will hit these points plenty on the campaign trail and in advertisements - but the convention needed to be about the man that these television jokers insist the country doesn't really know, and it needed to be about his vision for the country, which has needed lifting up for years. (If the convention had been a red meat convention, the bloviators would have said it should have been more about Obama introducing himself to the nation.)
Good-bye traditional media. Your days are numbered. You are foolish, silly people and you have nothing of value to offer us.
