I don't look to cable TV with all its 24 hour recyclin' stink, to form the basis of what I think.

Said that "...when she spoke about Obama, she really did not emote very much," Hill said. "The only thing she showed was a very weak smile, the cheeks didn't tend to lift very much, it was really almost what I would call a 'crocodile smile' where even the slight corners of the lips sometimes raise into a little bit of a smirk."

Frankly, between the media's contention that the Clinton/Obama friction is bigger than it is, and PUMAs similar claim that Clinton's nomination was stolen from her, the quality of Clinton's speech is being ignored, and my patience for BS shenanigans is being given no chance to recuperate.

There were a few precious moments on MSNBC right after Clinton's speech, when Olbermann was gushing forth in an extended baseball metaphor ("...out of the park, across the street...") and Matthews appeared gobsmacked into speechlessness. Then they went to Brokaw and Wilson, who had a few moments to recover, I suppose, because both began blathering about how "...keep in mind, this is a carefully choreographed event!", i.e. don't trust your lying eyes, it was all staged and fake.

Except I kinda doubt the bawling women (and men) in the audience were fake. I can only imagine a blinking sign above Hillary: first "Applause", then "Raucous Applause", then "Go Berserk!" then "Cry Like a Baby!"

But the most precious was the look on Brian Williams' face. I mean, he was trying, but he knew nobody was buying it. He tried anyway. And then they had technical difficulties. And then they were interrupted by a train whistle. It was awesome.

This is the silly season! It was a great, enthusiastic speech.

None of the spin on Hillary Clinton can hold a candle to this doozy from Megyn Kelly (Fox News) on Michelle Obama's speech, which was promptly and appropriately skewered by Stephen Colbert last night:

"Do you think that, you know, her saying that she loves America, that she loves this country, is going to do it for those who questioned her patriotism? Because she said something -- what she said was, and I wrote it down, was, "The world as it is just won't do." If you replace "world" with "country," you're back to the same debate, arguably, that you have been having about Michelle Obama's feelings about this country. Did she give her critics any fodder with that comment?"

Yes, and if you take Fox News reporting and replace the word "Obama" with "McCain" and vice versa, it turns out they are rabid liberal media leftist radicals after all!

The cable news networks WANT Hillary Clinton to "undermine Obama" because that keeps the fight going. The fight and controversy between Obama/Clinton has been very, very profitable for these shows. And I do mean "shows." They are not centered on news or journalism. They will give you one nugget of fact, with no context. Then they'll march out 6 commentators to interpret that fact in 24 different ways.

Here's the rundown:

-- MSNBC blows

-- CNN blows

-- Fox-News sucks like a meth-addled porn star

Sadly, Salon.com and Joan Walsh have been swept up into all this. There's been a lot of over-emphasis on fights and controversies without examination of where such things fit into the grand scheme, who benefits, and what the actual facts are.

Joan Walsh was all over the Rev. Wright controversy, but did anybody notice that neither she nor Salon.com did any actual reporting about the church? The idea that Rev. Wright spewed constant hate was taken as an article of faith when it should have been questioned. All I had to do was watch a couple of half-hour sermons on YouTube to know that the claims about Wright's histrionics had been trumped up. (Granted, he did say some stupid things.) The entire talking point of "How could Barack and Michelle sit in that church for 20 years soaking up that hatefulness?" was total idiocy. But where was the reporting?

Instead, we got horse-race reporting. Horse-race reporting is where journalists abandon their journalistic mission and instead try to make things "exciting" like sports. It's "Look, he's nosed ahead!" followed by, "Look, she's making a comeback!" Then you have the concern pieces, which go something like this: "I don't necessarily believe that it's Barack Obama's fault that a dead squirrel was found outside one of his campaign headquarters, but I am very concerned about how this will play with squirrel-loving Americans."

The fact is, the fight between McCain and Obama just isn't as fun or interesting as the fight between Obama and Clinton. The Clintons are sexy, a little psychologically fascinating, and they're stars. Obama can be a little dully straightforward at times (a point in his favor, in my opinion) and so can McCain. Won't someone think of the ratings?

I hard this earlier today and I couldn't *believe* that was gettting air time.

If Michelle Obama had substituted "want to blow up" for "love" when she said "I love America" then we'd have an entirely differently meaning. And if we substitute "npr" for "Fox", we might have meaningful political commentary.

It's CSPAN all the way!!! No commentary, just the convention itself.

Witness your own inability to move on (or are you just yearning for another victory trot through the delegation?). Be careful some feminist doesn't pull your tightie whities up to your chin.

People see what they want to see, and that goes triple for pundits. Conservative pundits, in particular, are desperate to continue Clinton-wants-Obama-to-lose narrative because they really, really aren't looking forward to Obama vs. McCain.