Posted on 02/03/2005 7:54:50 AM PST by paudio
MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews suggested last night that the high point of President Bush's State of the Union Address - the emotional hug between grateful Iraqi voter Safia Taleb al-Suhail and Janet Norwood, mother of a Marine who died liberating her country - was staged by the White House.
The cynical host apparently first voiced his skepticism during a commercial break. His comments were immediately seized upon by "Hardball" guest, MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan when the show returned.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
I merely understand how you put together a large TV event.
I don't think anybody planned the hug. But the facts make it obvious that someone was hoping for some display of emotion, which makes it staged.
The point you are missing is that you can stage an event and still have the specific action be spontaneous. Happens all the time, the entire world of sports, talk shows, live jazz, and political speeches revolve around that kind of loose staging.
I have no doubt at all that someone said "with any luck they'll do something and give us a great defining TV moment for the speech". That's why VIPs are selected for SOTU addresses, for their ability to provide good TV.
No staged doesn't imply the emotions were faked. Staged doesn't imply anything, it simply states the obvious, that these two people were put there and introduced in the speech for a reason.
I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Soon after this took place and my husband and I had finished wiping the tears from our eyes, I said, " I wonder how long it will take before someone says they planned it. It was Karl Rove".
Such predictable, pathetic creatures are the Dems these days.
Bwaaaaahahaha!
Now stop it. My stomach hurts :-)
I do live in the real world. This is the kind of thing people putting together TV events in the real world hope will happen, and putting real and decent people together in a situation where something like this happens IS staging.
I swear, that's what it looks like! But his hair is that blonde color that some women's hair looks after they go into a pool a lot!
Heck, people on this thread are saying it.
The Dims booing must have been staged too. 88 pauses for applause was staged. The building not collapsing was staged. The TV cameras in the room was staged. Each audiance member there was put there by Karl Rove. The frothing of the Dim leadership was staged. The soiled panties of Pelosi was staged. It was all a made for TV movie. We really don't even have a president. Every one there was an actor. We were really watching the West Wing. In fact, you are all a dream and I am in a bed in a coma and none of this is real. Quick, someone pinch me so I can wake up now....
I know what you are trying to get at. Staging an introduction is benign, what Chrissy is implying is that the emotions that were shown were staged, now that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Well Chrissy is a doofus. He makes his career in confrontation TV, he understands how you stage genuine spontaneous events, and he shouldn't push his declaration beyond the level of staging he works with every day.
Chris is such a small, small man. How PETTY.
No see Chris is a hypocrite. He does this kind of staging every day, and now he's criticising the President for doing the same thing. In order to make his criticism stick he's accusing Bush of a higher level of staging, one which is absurd and unnecessary given the situation. I'm not criticizing anybody, except maybe people that refuse to look at the man behind the curtain.
Chris Matthews is a vile little man. Bring on the proof. buddy!
This from a man [chrissy] who was creaming in his jeans and so "MOVED" at the reappearance of Bill Clinton on the world stage to state "HE LOOKS GOOD, WOW the ELECTRICITY in the air, it is like Lazurus rising from the grave!!"
Whether this moment was "staged" or not, the emotion was real, and that is what counts, that is what means something. I would venture to say that even if it hadn't been staged, and I am not saying it was, the outcome would have been exactly the same.
I'm not buying ANY of your speil.
That's because his own color is now too dark to take such a blonde shade.
That's why the front of his hair is now reddish -- if your hair is getting too dark, and they lighten it too much the wrong way, then it turns that reddish hue.
He's trying to hold onto his youth.
Laura Ingraham has this week been playing an audio of Chrissie saying: "Wouldn't it be fun to still be 25 and hang out with the Bush girls?"
He's pathetic.
Right, and I have no problem with the level of staging that obviously happened, a level of staging that happens every hour on TV news. It's a sad statement that Chrissy is trying to elevate his claims beyond the level of staging he earns his money with. He should be perfectly familiar with the level of staging that went on, and criticizing it is raw hypocrisy on his part, which is no less than I expect from him.
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