McCain-Palin w/Katie Couric

As most political watchers know, Governor Palin has had almost no public moments where Senator McCain is not somewhere nearby and controls the situation.

However, Governor Palin has had some moments by herself - first with Charlie Gibson and then with Katie Couric. And the clips out and about show a less than solid response to a number of questions.

As part of the CBS interviews, Senator McCain audited or sat in on one of the interviews. While the focus was on Governor Palin, Senator McCain became the overactive parent as the questions unfolded. I am sure this kind of treatment is likely to further endear himself to women voters..

NOT!!!

See the following:

Fiction and/or Fact - You Decide Which is Which

A lot of talk and attention has been focused on the portrayal of Governor Sarah Palin by Tina Fey, overshadowing an equally solid characterization of President Clinton by Darrell Hammond.

Last weekend I think we saw fiction anticipating reality with the Hammond/Clinton pairing, which I felt was stronger. (Fey/Palin was fiction following reality.)

See if you agree..

First, Darrell Hammond on Saturday night:






And then on Sunday, President Clinton:





Move over Tina, Darrell may have a niche that lasts beyond the upcoming election.

Fiction Between Fact

Last week we saw the first half of the Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview. (We will look at how the interview was parsed, later this week.)

Last night, Saturday Night Live took on the interview and offered this clip:







And as this use of Tina Fey and Amy Pohler has taken on increased web interest, and use in blogs like this one, NBC has stepped in to take down the postings that are not part of the NBC sites.

Read Sarah Lai Stirland's blog on this situation with an interesting link to the way Governor Palin has been portrayed in the media.

Moving at the Speed of the Internet

Last night, Senators McCain and Obama debated in the first of three televised presidential debates.

In 1960, on the same date - September 26, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated. After the debate, Kennedy was deemed to have done well. The Kennedy campaign took some of the footage and a few days later, crafted a television advertisement to play off of his debate performance.





Last night's debate has already produced its first commercial - in fact the commercial came out within a few hours of the debate having been finished. This advertisement was for Senator McCain, yet featured Senator Obama.




Expect more of the debate footage to surface in the days ahead as commercials for both. History does repeat itself.

Parsing the News Interviews

The CBS network had its hands full on Wednesday, September 24. David Letterman was the jilted talk show host, who was left looking through the tv monitor as his previously scheduled guest went for the interview with CBS News Anchor Katie Couric. (See blog from yesterday.)

While the interview was part of a well done news package, according to at least one respected report, CBS almost buries its lead and its scoop by not giving one immediate access to the story and the video. Rather, you need to burrow through the links and if it is more than a day or two ago, as it is now, you need to go back several pages. And then you have three flavors - the entire CBS Evening news:



Or the 11 minute segment from the news cast:



Or a clipped 5 minute segment on the news of his suspending his campaign:



And while this gives the viewer choices, the ways these clips are tagged leads to some frustration, if not outright abandonment of site if one wants to find out what McCain had to say about the economy, which is why folks are supposedly wanting to hear the Senator speak.

And I will not get started about the short ad fronting each CBS news segment. CBS - you give away the product elsewhere, why clutter up our viewing for each segment with an advertisement. For those who want more control and access to their CBS news products - and less advertising interuptions, check out the CBS News offerings on iTunes. And one can even get the discussed CBS News show with McCain here in its entirety and ad free.

Strange Bedfellows

Earlier this year, Russell Peterson published Strange Bedfellows, which argued how the late night comedy circuit had become part of the campaign trail and what it meant for political discourse.

This followed some earlier research which found that many younger voters got their news and information more from shows such as THE DAILY SHOW or COLBERT REPORT than conventional news short.

In all, there was a cry sent up from the mainstream media and some campaigns about how this was debasing the process.

Yet the parade of candidates continued and the symbiotic, if not parasitic, relationship between candidates and late night comedy continued. Until.....

last night (September 24) when Senator John McCain suspended his campaign and canceled his appearance on THE LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN.

But did he really suspend his campaign. As the video played out on LETTERMAN, it became apparent that McCain had dumped the LETTERMAN appearance to be interviewed by Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News. So, the Republican candidate for President dumps the second most watched late night show to appear on the third most watched television news show gives one pause to wonder who was behind not only this brilliant scheduling change, but did so amidst live satellite feeds which made the cover argument of rushing back to DC to work on the budget crisis an outright lie.

See the edited footage from the September 23 Letterman show:

A Response

Lost amidst the uproar over Reverend Wright's comments is the response of the mainstream Protestant leaders, as well as the United Church of Christ leaders.

Dr. Martin Marty, University of Chicago religious historian, has said that he never failed to leave one of Reverend Wright's services without feeling renewed and uplifted.

And the head of the United Church of Christ, spoke at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and made these comments:

He Is Not Always Satirical

The Daily Show regularly spoofs presidential candidates and campaigns, so they began their coverage of "The Speech" in a similar fashion. But don't leave before the piece finishes, this was not conventional Jon Stewart: