Watching the Convention on C-Span.

I've been watching the Democratic Convention the past two nights on C-Span, because that seems to be the way to actually see it. You get the uninterrupted proceedings from the podium and some shots of people in the audience, and nothing else. No one so much as explains, for example, why the wife of a governor is one of the speakers (a question I raised in yesterday's posts). Last night's convention was mindnumbing. I tried to simulblog, but, aside from Ted Kennedy, no one said anything interesting. That was a pleasant enough little film about Teresa Heinz Kerry and she carried out her speaking duty with aplomb, but I had nothing to say about it.



I'm thinking the real convention is what takes place on the network shows as the analysts ignore the convention. I got a sense of what must be on those shows from watching "The Daily Show" last night (when they were dealing with Day 1 of the convention). Were they gabbing about Teresa saying "shove it" and Kerry dressing up in that blue thing? [Apparently.] Maybe I need to abandon C-Span on the theory that those speeches I was watching weren't really meant to be heard. They were just background, something for Dan Rather to sit on the other side of a glass from as the party fed him talking heads. A speech like, say, Christie Vilsack's wasn't meant to be listened to. She was wallpaper--shiny, pink, polka-dotted wallpaper--for the chattering analysts. Watching C-Span, I was staring at the wallpaper, a notoriously tedious activity.