Obama's Moment

Instead of writing anything (so late in the media cycle) about Obama's speech, I am going to tell you what's wrong with reading something about what someone thinks about Obama's speech. Obama's speech was a work of art, it was an interesting gutsy speech BUT the best part about the speech was that, for a thirty seven minute period, everyone who thought anything about Obama was watching him speak into a camera. They weren't reading what I thought about Obama or what you thought about Obama, they were simply absorbing him with no gatekeeper journalist influence.

Blogs have become wonderful tools for self-expression, and have given a lot of smart opinionated people the place at the media table they deserve.

But reading a personal political blog must never replace someone actually watching and listening to a particular candidate.

Unfortunately, in this election, (and in most recent elections) I've heard more about what "media experts" think about a candidate than I've actually heard words directly from a candidate. I've read blogger's opinions on Clinton's policy points. I've read stupid rants on Clinton and Obama that revealed the one journalist's particular biases more than anything about the candidate.

Usually you don't hear a Clinton speech or an Obama speech or a McCain speech in full. You hear sound bites of the speech, edited with media commentary telling you what to think about the sound bites. Often you read about inane things, like whether a candidate seemed sleepy, or on edge, or angry during a speech. You don't hear what the candidate said, but rather you read a psychological profile of the candidate in the moment. A boring pyschological profile that would fit any one of us if we were on the road for weeks with zero sleep.

And perhaps it makes sense that things like hair, facial expressions, and intonation are more interesting to a pack of campaign journalists who have heard the same speech fifty gazillion times in the past 48 hours.

But the rest of the world didn't hear that speech. The rest of the world would like to know what was said, and not necessarily with all the petty nonsense. Okay it sells more newspapers, okay. We get it.

What was beautiful about the Obama speech was that, for one rare moment this year, everyone was hearing the words from the horse's mouth, and the producers, directors of CNN and MSNBC actually allowed us to have that moment without all of their usual talking heads.

After all, nothing is more boring or politically irrelevent than a "media expert."