Republican Convention Night One

Let me start by saying I thought it weird that the Republican Convention was scheduled for Labor Day in the first place. But I give the RNC credit for cancelling the first night of the convention in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.

So to last evenings coverage. I watched NBC's coverage and was surprised at how bad things came off. I don't know if this happened on other telecasts but when President Bush spoke they only had the White House feed. I mean there was NO crowd reaction to his speech that you could hear. So on the screen was President Numnuts pausing for applause that the viewing public could not see.

The Bush speech was expectedly lame and uninspiring. But it was an incredible slight that the sitting President of the United States was not only given a non-Primetime speaking slot, that he preceded Fred Thompson and a Democrat.

Now many have given kudos to Fred Thompson and I thought he was pretty good overall, but NBC cut in and out of his speech so much that I couldn't get a real flow of it. He also needed a bottle of water, because the poor guy sounded like he was choking to death through the parts that I saw.

Then came Joe Lieberman. I am disappointed with Joe Lieberman. When he was defeated in the Democratic Primary in 2006 I actually gave money to his independent campaign. It was a small donation but despite his war stance I always respected Joe.

The truth is I still respect Joe, but am disappointed in his remarks last night. Advocate for McCain all you want, he's your friend and I respect the loyalty. But to attack Obama who was always so complimentary to Joe (calling him his mentor a few years back) was bad form.

I was reminded that while I like Joe's demeanor he is an underwhelming presence on the stage. The fact that the Republicans had him as their 'Prime Time' slot last night was an odd choice. Maybe it works, but I think they wasted last evening.

Not to mention the excitement in the stadium was pretty dull the whole evening. Much of the upper deck was empty and while Thompson and Lieberman were good, they were very forgettable.

The truth is this, this has become the Palin convention pure and simple. While expectations were low for Biden as he was 5th on the list of must see speeches last week, all the pressure of this convention is squarely on Sarah Palin this evening.