I tuned to CNN last night to watch the speeches of Thompson, Huckabee, Guiliani, and Palin since FOX, for whatever reason, only carried Palin’s speech live. Watching CNN turned out to be an added bonus for me.
The three men that preceded Gov. Palin all gave good speeches. And the enthusiasm seemed to build on the previous speaker as the program continued, and Gov. Palin’s performance topped them all. Prior to last night, no body knew who Sarah Palin was, where she came from, and what she believes government’s role should be. Answering those questions was her mission last night, and as they say, she hit it out of the park.
The bonus? Immediately after her speech, the camera returned to Wolf Blitzer and his panel, and every one of them looked stunned at what they had just witnessed. They were in fact, speechless. For me, it was one of those ‘priceless’ moments.
Then I checked in on MSNBC, or as Rush affectionately calls the network, pMSNBC. Chris Matthews had a similar panel at his side and were assessing Palin’s speech. Much to my surprise, well, not really, Matthews leads the discussion with this, ‘how are we going to get her?’ Meaning of course, how are we going to take her out? Will the McCain campaign protect her from a reporter asking a question that can, in their mind, end her campaign?
Reporting news, reporting on a campaign, is not the objective of the Media of 2008. It is clear by this MSNBC panel, and the front pages of the New York Times, that the McCain-Palin ticket is not just running against Obama and Biden. The McCain-Palin ticket is running against the mainstream media as well. Which is why I especially liked Palin’s comment about the media.
‘Here’s a little news flash for those reporters and commentators. I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion, I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.’
