August 26, 2008

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The very exercise of FOX News Channel covering the Democratic National Convention in and of itself is laughable. Like there is any way that they would actually employ any kind of intellectual honesty or ethics and analyze the coverage. Pfffft. Everyone knows that they're bringing on their conservative and/or neocon roster of talking heads and find ways to tear about the Democrats, both individually and collectively. And this little exchange between Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer is endemic of the whole of FOX's coverage.

First of all, I'm not sure if Krauthammer is on sedatives or merely aspiring to be the television version of a sedative, but it was painfully hard to stay awake through the transcribing process. I'm convinced that Krauthammer had a hard time keeping awake too, because his sentences didn't completely make sense. When asked for his impressions of Wednesday's speeches, Krauthammer (who, like his National Review buddy Bill Kristol, has a long history of being completely and utterly wrong in his assertions), he couldn't obviously break the FOX code, but his criticisms were so vague and so oddly similar to those things that he praised in Bush in 2000 that it's almost comical to hear him struggle to find ways to slam Biden.

Biden is apparently too blue collar for Krauthammer (as opposed to the 'guy you wanted to have a beer with' Bush, whose appeal to the common man is undeniable). And he didn't talk about Obama enough--though why he'd be expected to in his acceptance of the nomination speech is never really explained. And the attacks on McCain will fail (with whom? Democratic delegates? Who's gonna buy that?) because everyone knows that McCain is a maverick and obviously not Bush's twin.

But this is the depths that Krauthammer and FOX had to sink to find something to criticize the day with: They had to pull the Kim Jong Il card. Why? Because delegates were waving signs at the convention! My God, those commies!

The other element of the attack is the other theme, which is McCain as the Bush heir and that's why you heard the refrain from uh the Biden saying not change, more of the same and you had the effect, that I find rather creepy, the audience holding up signs with slogans like you do in Pyongyang, which read "Not Change, More of the Same."

So lame. I'll bet next you're going to accuse them of being terrorist sympathizers next because their cheers sound suspiciously close to Muslim ulullating, you pathetic neocon hack. And given your track record of being right, Krauthammer, I'm going to take your predictions of doom and gloom as assurance that the Democrats are doing something right.

Full snore inducing transcripts below the fold:

HUME: Charles, your thoughts on this speech and these developments tonight.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I thought it was a disjointed week, and a disjointed evening, and I think you saw it all in a disjointed speech by Biden. It's got a whole bunch of elements in it, themes that don't quite mesh. And I think it shows that they're having trouble trying to figure out how to run against McCain and what the idea is, which is quite ironic, given that Obama is where he is for the first half of this year the other Democrats weren't able to get a handle on how to run against him.
You saw in Biden's speech a whole bunch of ideas with the you know, we're the ordinary guy who grew up in Scranton, the party of Everyman. Well that doesn't help a lot with everybody, that's an old idea and it doesn't win a lot of votes. Then he moved on to try to building up Obama, which is, as Nina indicated, is a little bit hard to do because his history is so thin. Obama will have to do that on his own tomorrow night. Surrogates are really unable to do it; it's extremely unconvincing.
And then you ended up with a two pronged attack on McCain. As Bill (Kristol) indicated, it is an attack on McCain, a frontal attack on judgment and even an implication of character, which I think is going to be hard ultimately to carry off. Because he is a man America knows and respects and knows ultimately is a maverick. The other element of the attack is the other theme, which is McCain as the Bush heir and that's why you heard the refrain from uh the Biden saying not change, more of the same and you had the effect that I find rather creepy, the audience holding up signs with slogans like you do in Pyongyang, which read "Not Change, More of the Same."
So the Democrats are having trouble understanding how they're going to succeed in pretending that McCain and Bush are twins as was indicated last night. Or are they going to run against the McCain as a person, which I think is going to be harder to do. And they're worried and somewhat muddled, I think.

HUME: Charles, let me ask you this. As a...compared to what we heard last night from Hillary Clinton, how would you assess the evening as a whole? Bill Clinton's speech, followed by Obama's, the drama on the floor when the nomination was made by acclimation and all of that. Your thoughts on that?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, it was a remarkable evening but again, of the many parts. Five hours ago, it was a moment of truly historic proportion and moving evening in which the first African American ascends to such a high and lofty position in American history. Within minutes it becomes again a street fight and the best of all, the ex-President shows up and shows everyone what a pro he is. It was like watching Mohammed Ali come out of retirement. He just is ultimately smooth, elegant. I mean, he's a guy who can fake sincerity as no one else in history has and was extremely convincing. And the way he shaped and framed the argument as the loss of the American Dream in one hand at home, and respect at home, was a very sharp and defined way to do it. Then you had the Biden speech, which I thought was mediocre, workmanlike and of course it ended up with Obama's appearance which is now a traditional, the nominee just gives a hint on the fine...on the evening before his speech as Clinton had done in 1992, when he made the famous walk up the streets of New York into the convention at Madison Square Garden. And of course I think it's really all going to hinge on tomorrow. Because it is about Obama, it is about who is he, and can America accept him as President. And that's what's really at stake. All of this is a prelude in terms of the general election for the Democrats

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