FNC Coverage of Bill and Hill
Reported by Chrish - July 27, 2004 -
Brit Hume killed some time fishing while waiting for the Clintons to speak at the DNC July 26. He revealed (at 3:09EDT) that Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry campaign manager, said there was no real moratorium on Bush-bashing, but Susan Estridge countered saying Dems would be critical, but by implication. Brit asked, "Is there a danger the Democrats will put on a dull convention that no-one will watch?"
Comment: It's a lose-lose situation for Democrats, damned if they do (bash), damned if they don't.
There was some more idle speculation, a brief interview on the floor with Barack Obama (D State Senator IL), a "Flashback" to 1932 DNC... An interesting observation: In my three hours of monitoring I heard the word "reflect" used five times, as in "the polls would suggest, even reflect..." (3:23 EDT), "we can reflect on John Kerry's performance..." (10:17EDT) "take a chance here to reflect on what we've just heard..." (11:01 EDT) and two more instances. To reflect gives the impression of deep, sustained thought...not what one usually associates with Fox. Are they attempting an Extreme Makeover themselves? Is Fox now sending down "word of the day" memoes ? LOL! I just thought it was funny - weird funny.
After the "flashback" piece, Brit Hume said "We journalists (so he does consider himself a jounalist) are always on the lookout for anything that might constitute a slip-up and there was some thought today that maybe, just maybe, John Kerry at this event at [muffs it] Kennedy Space Center in Florida might have done something that his handlers would have recommended had they had a chance to look it over that he not do. Let's look at these pictures. There's the distinguished Senator on all fours, in an outfit worn by technicians to do who knows what. There he is again, with technicians, John Glenn at his side, looking perhaps like Prince Valiant or who knows who. Is this someting the Republicans want to use, might be able to get their hands on and do something with...in advertising,...a little non-presidential perhaps?"
There was some short laughter in the background as the first picture came up, of Senator Kerry apparently crawling out of a who-knows-what, a big piece of scientific equipment that looked like an MRI. He was wearing a blue cover-up complete with slippers and head-covering (think hospital gown material) that was, I am guessing, to keep his clothes and hair clean/uncontaminated. In the second picture he was with John Glenn and two other men, all four in the blue garb.
Comment: This piece and the way in which it was presented was meant entirely to poke fun at Kerry, during his nominating convention no less, and to try to make him look foolish. Hume's suggestion that the Republicans might want to use it to picture Kerry as un-Presidential was tabloid-journalism at best, the equivalent of ambulance-chasing. At least John Kerry is a supporter of real science and has curiosity about the modern world beyond baseball scores.
Anyway, at 10:23 EDT Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was introduced, and the coverage of her speech and her husband's, former President Bill Clinton, was complete and uninterrupted. There were some banners on the lower third but they were just summary sound-bites, true to the speeches
I'll post on the analyses afterwards tomorrow, but concisely there was much agreement, even among the most right-wing guests, that Bill Clinton gives one hell of a speech!
