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I’m watching the Democratic National Convention. Last week I watched the Republican National Convention. I\u00a0don’t want to give the impression I’m\u00a0obsessive about politics, but the coming election’s an important one\u00a0and I want to know what forces are in play.<\/p>\n
Last week I watched prime time coverage of the RNC in Cleveland on network TV and the cable channel MSNBC. The commentators talked over most of the minor speeches, interrupted during the major ones, and kept cutting away for commercials. I wish I had thought of C-SPAN, but I hadn’t. Then, on the first night of the DNC in Philadelphia this week, I saw some positive\u00a0tweets\u00a0about C-SPAN’s convention coverage and decided to give it a try. What a difference! C-SPAN’s airing\u00a0the DNC in real time,\u00a0no commentary, no commercials. That would have been the way to watch last week’s\u00a0RNC, had I known.<\/p>\n
So far I’ve watched two nights of DNC coverage on C-SPAN. Every now and then I’ll click over to MSNBC. The difference is stark. MSNBC and the other\u00a0cable channels are\u00a0pushing the idea the Democratic Party is falling apart. Their commentators keep saying so, often talking over convention speakers.\u00a0Their cameras focus on belligerent Bernie Sanders supporters. C-SPAN, by contrast, doesn’t interject commentary and its\u00a0cameras are neutral. You see the overall picture, not just isolated troublemakers in the crowd, and dissension takes its proper place. It’s there, but not nearly as disruptive as MSNBC would have us\u00a0think. As far as I can tell, this DNC is more unified and hopeful than some of the past ones.<\/p>\n
Another thing the cable channels do: when they cut away from speakers at the DNC, it’s often to\u00a0show clips of Trump’s speech at last week’s RNC. Hey, Rachel, Trump got all the oxygen last week and we didn’t hear a peep about Hillary Clinton. This week it’s Hillary’s turn.\u00a0Let her have some air, will you?<\/p>\n
Impressions: I was wowed by Michelle Obama’s speech Monday night, wowed again by Bill Clinton last night. Wowed by the diversity of the people on the convention floor, who collectively look a lot more like America than the sea of middle-aged whiteness on display in Cleveland\u00a0last week.\u00a0Wowed by the diverse and inspirational\u00a0backgrounds of the minor speakers. Wowed by\u00a0the optimism and positiveness on display in\u00a0Philadelphia,\u00a0in sharp contrast to\u00a0the anger and resentment in\u00a0Cleveland last week. I hope the difference comes\u00a0through on network and cable TV coverage, in spite of\u00a0their efforts to play the “both sides” game.<\/p>\n
Okay, Bill Clinton, the elephant (or should I say donkey?) in the room. Apparently Rachel Maddow and other MSNBC commentators had issues with his speech\u00a0last night. I don’t know what they said\u00a0during Bill’s speech, because I was watching it on C-SPAN, but I clicked over to MSNBC after the convention went into recess for the night, and that’s all they were talking about. They apparently didn’t\u00a0believe Bill Clinton, in light of his well-known infidelities, could have been\u00a0sincere in his admiration of Hillary. But why couldn’t<\/em> Bill Clinton have been sincere? Why can’t<\/em> they believe his love and admiration is genuine?<\/p>\n Many husbands play around. Many wives, too. Some couples\u00a0break up afterward, but some stay together. Forever. Is their love for one another genuine? I have to believe it often is.\u00a0The Clintons have been married more than 40 years. The Trumps have been married less than 12. Previously, Donald Trump had two other wives, and his first marriage ended at least in part because he was having a very\u00a0public affair\u00a0with the woman who became his second wife. Two other prominent speakers at the RNC in Cleveland, Rudy Giuliani\u00a0and Newt Gingrich, have similar histories. The same cable TV commentators who can’t utter\u00a0Bill Clinton’s name without also reminding us of Monica Lewinsky never say\u00a0a word about other politicians’ sexual infidelities. It’s almost as if the Clintons are expected to live up to a different standard than other political figures.<\/p>\n I’m heartened to see on Facebook that many conservative family members and friends\u00a0are also watching the Democratic Convention, trying to be fair. Many of them were as wowed by Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton as I was. Just as important, at least to me, I hope people are getting the word about C-SPAN and turning away from network and cable TV coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m watching the Democratic National Convention. Last week I watched the Republican National Convention. I\u00a0don’t want to give the impression I’m\u00a0obsessive about politics, but the coming election’s an important one\u00a0and I want to know what forces are in play. Last week I watched prime time coverage of the RNC in Cleveland on network TV and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,10,16,27,2,8,30,827,414],"tags":[2152,951,296,950],"class_list":["post-19052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-media","category-memes","category-personal","category-politics","category-reviews","category-social-media","category-tv","tag-c-span","tag-dnc","tag-msnbc","tag-rnc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19052"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19059,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19052\/revisions\/19059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}