What you're missing/how you're being misled if you're not watching C-SPAN's convention coverage

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Amy Weiss

Listening to elected officials and party bigwigs for hours may be pretty boring at times, but listening to MSM pundits say "Nobody's attacking John McCain" AT THE EXACT SAME TIME the speaker they're talking over is attacking John McCain is incredibly frustrating. Of course Hillary Clinton was the big-ticket item last night-and she deserves every word of praise she received for her terrific speech-but the MSM did viewers a disservice by ignoring some rousing speeches.

This very kind of discussion was going on MSNBC and CNN just as Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer delivered this speech (all emphasis ours):

"After eight years of a White House waiting hand and foot on big oil, John McCain offers more of the same. At a time of skyrocketing fuel prices, when American families are struggling to keep their gas tanks full, John McCain voted 25 times against renewable and alternative energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind energy.

This not only hurts America's energy independence, it could cost American families more than a hundred thousand jobs. At a time when America should be working harder than ever to develop new, clean sources, John McCain wants more of the same and has taken more than a million dollars in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. Now he wants to give the oil companies another 4 billion dollars in tax breaks. Four billion in tax breaks for big oil?

That's a lot of change, but it's not the change we need...

Even leaders in the oil industry know that Senator McCain has it wrong. We simply can't drill our way to energy independence, even if you drilled in all of John McCain's backyards, including the ones he can't even remember."

The "where's the red meat?" discussions continued during and after Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey said:

The people of Pennsylvania can't afford four more years of Bush-Cheney economics, and with John McCain, that's exactly what we'd get. John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That's not a maverick. That's a sidekick.

The Bush-McCain Republicans inherited the strongest economy in history and drove it into a ditch. They cut taxes on the wealthiest of us and passed on the pain to the least of us. They ran up the debt, gave huge subsidies to big oil companies, and now they're asking for four more years.

As Media Matters keenly observed, MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell asked "[W]hy not position a senator, like Claire McCaskill, up there for five minutes and let her throw some red meat out to the crowd?" after McCaskill said:

For eight years we have watched our government take care of the powerful, the few and the extremely wealthy. We have seen our dream put at risk by George Bush's Washington. John McCain is running for four more years of the same old politics and exact same failed policies that we had under George Bush. They did tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, they're doing everything Big Oil asks for, and look where we are...

I saw [Obama] take on both parties to help pass the farthest-reaching ethics reform since Watergate. That's the change we need. I saw him run a campaign that hasn't taken a dime from federal lobbyists and PACs. That's the change we need. I know that this son of a single mom will stand up for the dreams of our daughters. And I know that John McCain won't...

It all depends on how clearly you see America--how clearly you see the best of America. John McCain has been in Washington for almost 30 years. Maybe that's why he has a campaign run by Washington lobbyists and thinks the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel said:

The truth is, the Bush crowd has been giving the middle class a thumping. This November, the middle class is going to give it right back. This election comes down to a simple question: Do we want four more years of Bush-McCain, or do we want the change we need?

...George Bush has put the middle class in a hole, and John McCain has a plan to keep digging that hole with George Bush's shovel...

You know, President Bush inherited the strongest economy in history and a huge budget surplus. He inherited an economy that created 23 million new jobs. I'm a little surprised. You would think the one thing President Bush was good at was inheriting things. Instead he turned a $236 billion surplus into a record deficit and added nearly $4 trillion in new debt. That's the one thing we can say about George Bush: Mr. President, we will be forever in your debt.

When it comes to the economy, when it comes to job creation, when it comes to health care reform, or when it comes to deficit reduction, there are three words that describe the Bush-McCain record: mission not accomplished.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said:

The results of the Republican energy policy are plain. Back then, the price of gas at the pump was about $1.50 a gallon. Today, it's $4 a gallon. Back then, it cost about $900 to heat your home through the winter. This winter, it's more likely to be $2,500. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil just announced the largest quarterly profit in history. That's not just an outrage. It's obscene.

This happened because for the last eight years, the Bush-Cheney team stonewalled the taxing of oil company profits and prevented efforts to promote alternative energy production. And guess who voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time? Sen. John McCain...

And if you look past the speeches to his record, it's clear: John McCain has never believed in renewable energy, and he won't make it part of America's future. For all his talk, here's the truth: John McCain voted against establishing a national renewable energy standard. He voted against tax incentives for renewable energy companies. And for all his talk of drilling, he refused to endorse a bipartisan effort to expand domestic oil production because that bipartisan proposal would end tax breaks for big oil.

It's clear: the only thing green in John McCain's energy plan is the billions of dollars he's promising in tax cuts for oil companies. And the only thing he'll recycle is the same failed Bush approach to energy policy. We can't afford more of the same. We need a strategy that puts America on a path to end the age of oil once and for all.

Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich said:

If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold. World records for violations of national and international laws. They want another four-year term to continue to alienate our allies, spend our children's inheritance and hollow out our economy.

We can't afford another Republican administration. Wake up, America. The insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America. The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing.

Wake up, America. The speculators took over Wall Street. Wake up, America. They want to take your Social Security. Wake up, America. Multinational corporations took over our trade policies, factories are closing, good paying jobs lost.

Wake up, America. We went into Iraq for oil. The oil companies want more. War against Iran will mean $10-a-gallon gasoline. The oil administration wants to drill more, into your wallet. Wake up, America. Weapons contractors want more. An Iran war will cost 5 to 10 trillion dollars.

This administration can tap our phones. They can't tap our creative spirit. They can open our mail. They can't open economic opportunities. They can track our every move. They lost track of the economy while the cost of food, gasoline and electricity skyrockets. They skillfully played our post-9/11 fears and allowed the few to profit at the expense of the many. Every day we get the color orange, while the oil companies, the insurance companies, the speculators, the war contractors get the color green. 

Now maybe some of these speakers don't bring in ratings like the "headliners" do. (Fox News apparently doesn't even think the headliners are as important as they are, as Hannity and Colmes interrupt the keynote speech to talk about Bill Ayers and chat with Rudy Giuliani.) Maybe the pundits think the big dogs should be going after "red meat" in primetime. Or that the attacks are't quite pointed enough. Those could be legitimate arguments but they are not the one they're making. Simplifying their analysis by saying "No one is going after Bush or McCain" because Michelle Obama and Mark Warner didn't is misleading the American people who trust they are getting a fair rundown. It sounds like they just aren't paying attention. They're too concerned with the "Party Unity: Will they or won't they come together?" narrative -- which delegates on the ground say is overblown -- to actually cover what's happening and help the American people understand what the Democrats in 2008 are about.

To borrow from Dennis Kucinich: Wake up, mainstream media!

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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