ABC and Charles/Charlie/Chuck Gibson Can Kiss My Shiny Heinie

I would have written this sooner, but some dingleberry with a back-hoe dug a little too deep north of town and knocked out eveybody's internet and phone/cell service for a day or so. Don't ask me the particulars, but it seems like no matter who your carrier is, they all share the same fiber-optic doodads up here in the mountains.

Normally I don't blog about politics, except once when I confessed about our mixed marriage and my frustration with having to answer political callers who don't have to abide by the same rules telemarketers do with the "Do Not Call" list.

I don't care what your affiliation is. I'm not going to pontificate on mine. There's already too much divisiveness in the world, and I blog to get away from a lot of that crap especially if it touches my real life. And believe me, I get enough of this crap at home.

So I won't comment, or write about political stuff generally, unless it's a specific issue that's near and dear to my heart. I want to enjoy your blog, want you to enjoy mine, and we can all be lovey dovey together. LOL I'm not dissing you if you write about politics, and it won't change my opinion of you at all---just don't be offended if I don't comment.

That said, Hubby and I watched last week's DNC convention speeches together, and this week's RNC convention speeches as well. As hard as it was, we refrained from ranting about this or that and restrained ourselves to (mostly) polite snorts.

There were a couple of impolite gagging sounds that came from the guy who subsequently got to clean the projectile dog vomit out of the kennel last week if he didn't want to spend the night on the couch instead.

The nights are getting cold. The couch is hard. He paid for his transgression lickety-split. Plus I blew a few foul fluffies in his direction under the blankets and didn't say "excuse me" to furthur illustrate my indignance on his rudity.

We didn't watch any particular station, and skipped all the "after" commentaries, because frankly, Hubby and I may disagree on some things, but we both feel that as somewhat educated, erudite, and informed adults with perfectly adequate hearing, we don't need a ::koff:: media pundit "interpreting" the speeches we just heard "for" us.

We can chew on them and bicker about them by ourselves.

So on opening night of the RNC speeches, we tuned in to ABC by a random flip of the dial to hear Fred Thompson's speech, and then the one from Joe Lieberman.

I'm not a huge fan of Mr. L, not because he changed his party affiliation, but simply because it seems that almost every time I see him on the tube, he's very self-promoting and that bothers me. I understand that it's the nature of the beast in politics, so I'm not singling him out.

Hubby and I were watching---ok, I was watching, Hubby was in the kitchen listening and scooping ice cream---when the speech abruptly ended and we were treated to the desk with Diane Sawyer, Charles Gibson and George Steponallofus (like I'm going to look up the spelling this late at night).

Charles Gibson made some comment about how what a turnaround it was to see Mr. L speaking for the Republicans, when 8 years ago yada yada yada, nothing remotely original----and the three of them smugly chuckled. Then Gibson launched into some commentary, and my hubby said, "Is Lieberman still speaking?"

And yes, yes he was...in the background. So I quickly switched the channel, and he was in the middle of his speech!

Well WTF?

Dear ABC and Charles Gibson,

If you're competing with other networks to cover events like these, please tell your viewers that you're going to cut into them with personal opinions and commentary so that we have an option of changing the channel to one which will let us see everything in its entirety without your worthless "hair-do's" input.

I don't need Chuck to "interpret" anything for me.

And I don't give two shits for his opinion either.

I can read, listen, opine, pay taxes and vote on my own. No training wheels or instruction booklet necessary.

Charles Gibson is a sack of skin with a shiny hair-do that sits in front of a camera. That doesn't make his opinion any more informed, important or relevant than any other person's.

His job is to report the news, not to try to influence it.

Denying your viewers the entirety of an event like this and then offering "your" commentary and interpretation of a fraction of it is misleading and irresponsible. Don't pretend to be journalists.

Won't ever tune into ABC again if I want to get the "facts".

Please feel free to kiss my shiny heinie.

ATM