Boringest. Convention. Whatever.

Wonkette summed up the general feeling after the RNC quite well:

Also, it occurs to us that we are not very angry. Shouldn't we be angry? The protests, the traffic tie-ups, the insane man challenging Chris Matthews to a duel, Rudy Guiliani attempting to turn falling bodies into this convention's "thousand points of lights," the giant cross on the podium. . . So much to be angry about. But we're just kind of bored.

I get all misty remembering sitting in front of the T.V. while I was a kid, watching the conventions of the 60s and early 70s. The networks and mainstream press of today keep trying to bullshit us into believing these shows are just sooooo boring that there's no way people will watch. Well, that's true, but it does it have to be? The networks get people to watch Big Brother 5 for God's sake. The top 7 shows last week were the (most boring ever) Olympics. So media can get people to watch boring crap.

Which leaves us with the questions: Why don't they make the conventions interesting? Why no "Up close and personal" on the delegates? How did they get there? What are their concerns? Why not explore the party's platform? How does its various planks play in Peoria? In Pittsburgh? In Pensacola? How do the things said at the podium compare with reality? What promises were made during the last campaign, and what has been done in the following four years? Who are these people?

And that's just the fat for the reality generation. If they wanted to bring actual substance to the screen there's enough to replace a whole week's work of the media's currently fashionable fare. But substance is what real things are made of, not the vacuous thought-free crap currently being passed off as entertainment. And if the public were given something of substance, there's no telling what they would build. The status quo might shift. Fear Factor indeed.