Tag: c-span

So I have C-SPAN radio on this morning as I’m taking my eldest to his eye exam, and I’m in full, helpless, Dear God These People mode while listening to the call-ins.  You can’t help yourself, you know.  They’re endlessly fascinating, in a horrible sort of way.

This one guy, case in point: self-proclaimed Democrat.  Loudly wants Hillary Clinton (who is 67) not to run, because she’s ‘too old.’  …OK, I have the same complaint.  So the moderator asks this guy who he does like, and first he (genuinely, I think) said ‘Elizabeth Warren.’  …Who is 65.  And then the caller says ‘Bernie Sanders.’  That would be the point where I start fake-yelling at the radio, because I know that it’ll make my kid laugh: “DUDE!  SANDER’S OLDER THAN CLINTON IS!” Which he is (73: and mind, I had to look the exact age up).

Ah, C-SPAN.  Never change. Never, ever change.

This line from Andrew Malcolm amuses:

…a recent personal visit to C-SPAN’s headquarters overlooking Capitol Hill found a far different scene. It’s a wild, ‘Animal House’-like place where rap music blares, paper airplanes fly about and Friday afternoon beer parties and hallway wrestling matches are legendary.

We encountered C-SPAN’s founder Brian Lamb in cutoff jeans, flip-flops and an “Impeach Everybody” t-shirt, a beer in each hand and a necktie around his forehead. Lamb was celebrating a rare occurrence, an actual budget in the United States Senate after nearly four years of flouting the law.

All that, of course, is hooey. As Lamb puts it in his trademark steady manner, “Other than quorum calls, every day at C-SPAN is a party.”

Continue reading C-SPAN is 34.

“…for C-Span.”  The current system fixes the cameras on the floor podium and Speaker’s dais, which adequately covers the ostensible reason for C-Span coverage.  Allowing the cameras to pan out from there… well, this means three things will happen:

• More candid shots of Members of Congress picking their nose.
• More temptations for outside groups to disrupt the proceedings with staged antics.

Both of these are merely aesthetic issues, and easily survivable.  But here’s the real problem:

• Control over the cameras means that C-Span gets a vote in deciding what is newsworthy.

I find that I don’t want C-Span’s input on that, actually.  They do an excellent job of presenting the actual business of the government with a calm, impartial eye; I don’t want them having on the spot editorial authority.

Moe Lane

PS: Yup, they do commentary.  And opinion pieces.  But they don’t get to muck about with the raw feed.