After day 1 of the DNC

Mondays are my days off and Brandi had already put the baby down and headed off to the gym, so I sat down on the couch and watch the Dem Convention last night. Unfortunately I only caught the last half of Michelle Obama’s speech, along with the analysis by the various talking heads. I like to switch between networks to see how different anchors react to different things. If you pay attention and see how different people do it, you can definitely see the slant that some networks or reporters take.

Some observations here.

If you are watching Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, then you are definitely seeing the most liberally biased presentation of the convention. Which is fine, if that’s your preference. At the end of the speech when the Obama girls came on stage and Barrack came up on the screen, it almost sounded like Olbermann was getting choked up and of course just fawning all over the whole scene. Quite a contrast to the comments from the Ragin’ Cajun James Carville on CNN who had some blistering statements about the convention so far.

Over on Fox news you definitely got the other side. They had Juan Williams saying some positive things about the speech and Britt Hume seemed fairly impartial (always a class act in my opinion). Chris Wallace said that the whole day was a missed opportunity and a waste, which was backed up by several panel members. Fred Barnes gave a good sense commentary on the evening and made some kind remarks even though he is clearly more conservative in his views. Karl Rove was unusually non-sensical and went on for a couple of minutes ragging on M.O. for making points and statements that could have been made by other people. Britt tried to bring him back, but I think at that point it was a lost cause.

Personally, having seen what I saw and read through the transcripts, I think Michelle did what she needed to do. She is obviously a very intelligent and articulate lady who loves her husband and her kids. The whole point of her giving the speech was to make sure that she looked like a normal patriotic American from humble beginnings (after some revealing comments earlier in the primaries). She also wanted to make sure that Barrack came across as a normal father/husband/brother-in-law who believes in this country and in the American dream; obviously an effort to confront the “celebrity” commercials from the McCain camp (which are GENIUS, politically speaking). In the meantime she threw in several references to her faith, some positive statements about military families, and a brief overview of her husband’s agenda concerning Iraq, the economy, and healthcare. The first night was an important night to try and rally the liberal troops and try and gently recreate Obama’s image. Mission accomplished.

I don’t think that we are going to see more of the same tonight. In fact, I am counting on a lot of interesting statements tonight. Hillary Clinton is speaking. Don’t tune into MSNBC if you want to see the rabid Hillary fans that will be drug out of the arena foaming at the mouth. Go to FNC for that. :)