State of the Union
January 21, 2004
I have a strong and inexplicable aversion to speeches, talk shows, and call-in shows. I’m not sure why. But for that reason I tend to get news of the State of the Union Addresses from secondary sources: transcripts, newspaper articles, and now blogs.
Bubba clearly thought the speech was a bomb, but for excellent analysis on what the content of Bush’s speech actually was, I direct you to Carey Cuprisin’s joint. I think Carey pretty much has it nailed. We knew Bush had given up on bipartisanship way back in 2001 (“We” == “everyone but Ted Kennedy”); but now he’s confident enough in his ability to win reelection he feels he doesn’t have to pretend to reach out to moderates anymore.
Posted in So Called Media
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January 22nd, 2004 at 8:11 am
I don’t have so much an aversion to speeches as I do to Bush. I had better things to do that night than listen to him beat the same dead horse.
Call-in shows, though, always make me vaguely uncomfortable. I’ll occasionally watch because I’m interested in the guest or the host, but once they start fielding calls, I want nothing so much as for the callers to shut up. Not a big fan of question-and-answer sessions either.
January 22nd, 2004 at 4:57 pm
Good moderating goes a long way.
I’m the chairman of a group of programmers. Hoo nelly.
January 22nd, 2004 at 8:11 pm
True enough. As John mentions via e-mail, good call-screening can go a long way. I can very happily listen to the people calling into “Car Talk”, for instance, but I’ll usually squirm even when callers have valid and interesting questions on other programs.
It extends to the web as well. I’ll notice that when I’m reading the FAQ responses that Neil Gaiman sometimes posts to his weblog, for instance, I’ll skip or at best skim the quoted text. I’m much more interested in the answer than the question.
I’m perfectly okay with talk shows, though. Maybe it’s the idea of handing the reins over to amateurs or that a lot of questions in Q&A’s tend to start out with very awkward, fawning praise.