What did everyone think of McCain’s speech…or Giuliani’s? Thoughts, comments?
-XT
Interesting that none of the networks are showing any of the speeches tonight. McCain’s bored me. Too much Sept. 11 fatigue for me.
It’s interesting to compare the tone of this convention to the DNC. I missed McCain, but I’m watching Guiliani now. This con has a lot more booing and a lot more personal attacks on the other candidate. The DNC was about Kerry, and it looks like the RNC will be as well.
They seem to hope that the moderate love for Guliani and McCain rubs off on Bush. For me, it actually goes the other way. I have less respect for them now.
I completely enjoyed Giuliani’s speech. It was very good and I think he definitely hit at least a triple with it. I was less impressed with McCain’s speech…it came off a bit flat to me.
Well, Giuliani certainly didn’t pull any punches, but I think its a mischaracterization to say he talked mostly about Kerry. Some of them were quite funny actually, and a few of them cut to the bone I though. And McCain was trying pretty hard to be bi-partisan…zero attackes on Kerry at all.
Well, Fox was covering it so I watched their speeches there. Is this true that the other networks didn’t cover this in its entirety?? Because Fox ran the speeches at the DNC…certainly ALL the major ones. Interesting if you are right.
-XT
I’m right there with you SmackFu.
I caught part of Giuliani’s speech. When he said that amongst all the chaos of the morning of 9/11, with the towers ablaze and having just witnessed a person leap from 100 stories up, he turned and said to the Police Chief “thank God George W Bush is president”, the needle on my bullshit detector buried itself in the red zone.
Not on any of the broadcast networks (except PBS). I’m pretty sure they skipped the first night of the DNC too. If they follow that pattern, the other nights will get an hour.
Not sure about abc or cbs, but nbc had more important programs to air - like “Last Comic Standing”.
Talk about showing your true stripes…
Having listened to a few of the speeches on NPR, I have to wonder where the “Oh, this isn’t to capitalize and politicize 9/11! No! No! No!” thing went.
And listening to Ron Silver, I have to wonder why the Righties aren’t so outraged when those “Hollywood people” support their side…I mean, what does an actor know about politics, right?
What did ya’ll think of the Michael Moore part of McCains speech…when the cameras focused in on the fact that the big man was in the house? 
I thought it was hilarious.
-XT
I caught some of his speech, but didn’t see that part. But you gotta be kidding! Are you sure that’s what he said? No. No, I don’t believe he said that. Couldn’t have said that, its too stupid. Way too stupid, off the scale…Oh, crap! Now I have to completely recalibrate my stupidity vectoring! At least a factor of 10, that’s a lotta damn work.
I’ll just wait, somebody will e-mail and point out that he didn’t exactly say that, then maybe I won’t have to until tomorrow.
I didn’t see McCain’s speech, but since he admited to Tom Brokaw tonight that he hasn’t seen Farenheit 9-11, maybe I should feel free to comment anyway.
Oh, and ABC had other priorities too. Monday Night Football – even though it is pre-season.
He said it…but it wasn’t quite as lame as CBEscapee is making it out to be. In fact, of the two speeches Giuliani’s was actually LESS strewn with quasi-religious phrases and comments. Its one of the things that annoyed me so much about McCain’s speech in fact…that and I thought McCain was really flat tonight. McCain simply came out with no fire…and what fire he DID project seemed staged to me.
Neither speech was up to Obama’s wonderful speech at the DNC…but I think that the RNC is going to strike more of a cord with Americans (just my rough, thumb nail take on things so far). I really urge Democrats to follow this closely and try and look at things from an unbiased perspective (well, as objective as possible)…or you are all in for a major surprise in October.
-XT
What wasn’t lame about it??? He was describing his experience at ground zero that morning. He talked of looking up and seeing the jumper and the flames from hell. Then he mentioned escaping from a building they were in. The screen at the convention then showed a still picture his entourage on the street with dust masks. Then he came up with the whopper.
The camera panned to Bernard Kerik, sitting right next to Pappy Bush in the audience. To me it looked like the statement caught him a little by surprise. After a brief moment he turned to his left and nodded affirmitively.
Or, perhaps he really thought that having GW as the president at that time was a good thing. Again, its all in how you look at it. I took his comment as a non-religious exclaimation…same way I’d say ‘thank god’, even though I dont believe in god…as a reflex exclaimation. If I saw someone falling out of a sky scraper that was on fire I would probably say something like “Jesus Christ!!”, even though, again, I don’t believe in JC. If I felt that it was a GOOD thing for GW to be president (as Giuliani obviously DOES), then I can certainly see someone making such a statement in a stressful situation.
He really made no other overt quasi-religious mouthings (unlike McCain who’s speech was rife with them)…and I thought he came across as pretty sincere. So, IMHO it WASN’T that lame (ok, it was a bit lame, but not the whopper you are making it out to be)…obviously YMMV.
-XT
Here’s a link for you elucidator: Rudy’s histrionics
McCain was boring. The only interesting moment was the Moore moment and I think MM took some piss out of the Pubs by laughing and raising the “loser” sign. If he’d have appeared angry or offended it would have been more effective.
Giuliani just came off like a douchebag, IMO. He spewed a lot of empty rhetoric about “leadership” but didn’t really offer any logical support as to why W should be that leader. He also greatly overplayed the “terrorism” boogeyman that the Chimp is supposed to be protecting us from, as well as conflating the “War On Terror” with Iraq. The worst moment for Rudy was when he actually compared GWB to Winston Churchhill. Other than alcoholism, the two have nothing in common.
I didn’t hear Rudy say anything about his own support for abortion rights or gay rights. I wonder why.
I think both speeches failed at anything other than rousing up the morons in the audience because nothing rang true about them. They were trying to argue Shrub as a great leader but they were arguments from nothing but assertion. There was no substance, no resonance.
McCain has diminished himself a little in my eyes and Rudy would have too if I’d ever respected him in the first place.
I really didn’t think he was invoking religion, I just find it unbelievable for him to be thinking about Bush at that moment and under those circumstances and verbally expressing such a thought to another. Like you say YMMV but to me it was pure bullshit.
Just wanted you to clarify what you meant by “Talk about showing your true stripes.” If you meant that NBC’s true stripes involved giving the conventions (both of them) short shrift in favor of crappy reality programming, then I fully agree, and it sucks.
However, if you meant that they were deliberately not showing Giuliani’s and McCain’s speech and that indicated some sort of partisan leaning, I’m gonna have to call you on that. The networks gave both the DNC and the RNC three hours of broadcast time. The parties got to decide which three days of their convention, from 10 to 11 the networks would broadcast. The DNC chose to skip Tuesday, leaving Clinton, Edwards and Kerry on the docket. The RNC chose to skip today, giving us Schwarzenegger, Cheney and Bush the rest of the week.
NBC (as well as ABC and CBS) is treating the parties exactly the same. It was the RNC that decided that a political neophyte Governor from California was more important than two of the most respected Republican politicians in the country.
So, feel free to castigate NBC for not showing more of the conventions (and, as I said before, if that is what you meant by the statement, then I’m with you 100%). But don’t claim the existence of a bias.