Not Ready for Prime Time From: http://interactive6.wsj.com/articles/SB965262974247690116.htm It's a good thing for the networks that "Big Brother" isn't working out. That's the CBS reality show where viewers each week vote to kick out a member of the show. Given the coverage of this week's GOP convention, we're not sure the network stars would make the cut. Especially since so many clearly regard the Republicans gathered in Philadelphia as a tribe only slightly less exotic than the Navajo. Conventional wisdom (no pun intended) holds that the political convention is no longer worth covering because -- of all things! -- it has moved out of the smoke-filled backrooms and onto the TV screen. But it's not true that the networks are ignoring the convention. What they are ignoring are the speeches by flesh and blood Republicans on the floor. Instead of this, viewers get Bernard Shaw, Matt Lauer and Peter Jennings lamenting how slick it all is, how the Republicans are wolves in moderate clothing, how the Colin Powells, Condoleezza Rices and John McCains are stage props who don't represent the "real" Republican Party. By now this has become a set feature of the coverage. But we think it a tad condescending to treat these people simply as showpieces instead of what they are: accomplished Republicans. Colin Powell, after all, is a former head of the Joint Chiefs who won a war many previous chiefs were on record as saying couldn't be won. Condoleezza Rice is a Stanford provost and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who served as director of Soviet and East European Affairs at the National Security Council. We all know John McCain's resume: Is it really all that hard to believe that this former P.O.W. would put the good of his country above his personal ambition, that he thinks America would be better off and the world a much safer place with George W. Bush as commander in chief rather than Al Gore? Sure, the Republican convention is an infomercial. And yes, the emphasis may be on the warm and fuzzy. But surely it tells you something that when Dr. Rice gets warm and fuzzy, its over a missile defense system, that for Colin Powell, it's on the need to give vouchers a shot if we are to give inner city kids a chance at the American dream, that for Elaine Chao it's about the Republican commitment to make immigration easier for families like hers who crossed an ocean in search of that dream. Come to think about it, why stop there. Anyone want to argue that Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf is just another warm and fuzzy number, that his complaints about the number of army divisions unfit for battle and how this administration treats our fighting men and women were just TV glitz? Ditto for the received media wisdom that, in contrast to '92 and '96, Republicans are hiding their real message this time to make it more palatable. In fact, anyone reading the speeches would probably reach just the opposite conclusion: That Republicans are making themselves more palatable by getting back to their principles. Wasn't it Bob Dole who said in '96 that he hadn't even read the platform? And though George Sr. did pretty well with the Reagan agenda in 1988, reneging on his tax pledge left him unpersuasive on such issues come 1992. As Dr. Rice put it in talking about how her father became a Republican when Democrats wouldn't register him back in the Jim Crow South of 1952, "I found a party that sees me as an individual, not as part of a group." In other words, just maybe the network chieftains who didn't think Dr. Rice's speech worthy to broadcast might want to consider the truly radical notion that some people become Republicans not in spite of Republican principles but because of them. Some time around 11 p.m. this evening, George W. Bush will formally accept the Republican nomination for president, with Dick Cheney at his side and a platform that takes a clear position on everything from Social Security and taxes to abortion and missile defense. It is his party, and his convention. Doubtless if Pat Buchanan were still around or Newt Gingrich were still Speaker, they would be the focus no matter what Mr. Bush did or said. All of which makes us think that what the media really resents is not that Republicans are following a script -- but that it isn't the one they had been expecting. ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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