Yawn, another day, another historic thingy
Both parts of the title are true. ‘Yawn’ because I stayed up to watch the whole thing and had a few drinks (not contributing I hope to someone on Iain Dale’s most excellent live chat calling me a ‘right-wing nutcase’ or something along those lines). I’ve only just woken up. Having been to the pub yesterday before coverage started and come back to the house with a soon-to-be-comatose drunken battered female friend trying to avoid her boyfriend and our female prison officer mate I could tell that the night was going to be odd.
Anyway, they took the two bedrooms (and a large chunk of my wine rack) leaving me with the sofa and the growing horror of a B Hussein Obama victory. Enjoying Iain’s excellent chat engine I braved it to the end.
My new blogging amigo “Another Day” has effused over the result, saying that it is a great thing. Other sites on my must-read list are saying that the world is about to end. I’m more in the wait and see camp – having observed on many occasions that I’d have liked both of them to lose. Duncan Hunter was my choice from the primaries.
My main blogging-related gripe is the BBC. All night it was an Obama Wank-A-Thon and I bet that exactly as the documented incidents stated when the great Baroness Thatcher was undemocratically unseated – the halls of the BBC were filled with empty champagne bottles. It’s a “historic election” apparently. Yeah, of course it is. They’ve had 40-ish since that criminal destruction of tea-leaves in a harbour so all of them are going to be historic. As for going down in history, me running a bath also technically counts as history although I doubt any Norse bard will sing songs of my bath-running victory and salute my rightful place at the High Table in Asgard.
I’ll blog more on my view of what went right/wrong later but am going to have a glass of breakfast to sort my head out, check out the House/Senate results, clean the place up after the impact of the mad women, read ConHome, Iain and Guido and then go to the pub.
“My main blogging-related grip is the BBC. All night it was an Obama Wank-A-Thon”
Well, it was fortunate I could type with one hand then!
I’m not sure where the Obama love-in (I prefer my way of putting it) was due to a liberal BBC bias, or just recognition of what was an inevitable victory and a focus on the change in the guard at the White House. I guess we won’t know.
Flicking over to Fox News on occasions this morning, they need seem somewhat at a loss to know how to react to Obama’s win and the analysis seemed to consist of reporters shaking their heads in shock and disbelief. Maybe BBC’s approach at least meant they had a level of continuity and a them developing through the evening.
I said on Ian Dale’s site this morning that I thought the BBC coverage was calmer, quieter and less full of whiz-bang noises and graphics than the other channels. I know it doesn’t seem to be the consensus, but that suited me for most of the long night. I only switched over to CNN for the final results that took Obama over the winning line and the subsequent broadcasts of McCain and Obamas’ speeches.
Yes, the BBC seemed to be slow responding at times and had their fair share of technical glitches – but I did enjoy the contributions from Christopher Hitchens, John Bolton and SImon Schama. And Nic Robinson broadcasting from outside No. 10 after a few to many drinks was fun to watch.
But if you thought the overnight coverage was a love-fest, I hope you didn’t watch Newsnight or the earlier Newsnight special!
Thank god for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for unbiased, calm and in-depth coverage (!!)
Interesting post AnotherDay. I’ve done a post above this one about the US election but I’m avoiding going too much in to it as everyone else on the web is reporting the same stuff but with different slants.
I’m more interested in the fallout for the Republicans. I liked Republican Recriminations on your blog very much but I’m going to do a lengthy post in a week or two when the dust settles I think.
Is this a 1997 moment? Were you Up For Portillo? We don’t know these things yet.
There are plenty more things under the sun to blog about before then.
I was indeed up for Portillio (and his very gracious speech in defeat). It was a memorable moment, but I don’t think particularly significant – it was part of what were bigger events on the night.
I do think Obama was hugely significant (an listening to black commentators both on this side and over the Atlantic you can appreciate why). For me (as I posted) was more akin to 1990 and watching the Wall come down in Berlin.
What strikes me is that people are celebrating Obama’s victory for positive reasons – his achievement. Not so much for getting rid of Bush.
This I think bodes well – New Labour always seemed to me to be a project to neuter the Tories rather than being any ideological adventure or achievement. It is why Labour are (despite Glenrothes) in a state of disarray. The focus on the positive achievement for Obama I think will give him a more latitude to progress into the job. We shall see…