Channel surfing to find a cable station that would show the speeches without interruption Tuesday night, I settled on MSNBC.
After the Heinz Kerry speech, I was struck at how positive the analysis was from Chris Matthews and panelists Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, and Newsweek correspondent Howard Fineman. It was the fourth member of the panel, former Congressman Joe Scarborough, who raised significant questions about how her speech would be received by Americans outside the hall – especially those Americans of more modest means. He also said he believed many women would not resonate with her remarks, a comment dismissed by Mitchell as an indication of “the gender gap.” Scarborough shot back: “The culture gap.”
OK, so by the time the panel got going and everybody had their say, I felt as if I was getting some interesting diversity of views, if not exactly balance.
Then I switched to Fox and was struck by how negative the analysis was from Host Brit Hume and panelists Mort Kondrake, who is executive editor of Roll Call, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, and Fred Barnes, who is the Standard’s executive editor. It fell to NPR National Political correspondent Mara Liasson to suggest Heinz Kerry might have connected with women around the country a bit more than her panelists realized. All and all, a reversed image of the MSNBC panel.
The discussion on both panels was noticeably improved by the lone dissenting voice. Neither panel provided as much balance – or insight – as I was looking for after that speech. Together, thanks to the remote in my hotel room, they did.
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