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 ...
Not speculation, simply how things work. Why else would they not have been introduced before?
Not ignoring the point at all, it just isn't a point. It's obvious there was some contrived staging, it comes from the Marine mother's own mouth and you yourself have stated it "she had not met the Iraqi lady previously", why not? There's only one good reason to save the introductions until they're on camera: to let whatever they're going to do when introduced happen on camera. The very act of not introducing them to each other ahead oof time IS staging, postponing what is likely to be a very powerful and emotional moment until it can help sell the President's message.
Apparently if you think not introducing two people until the cameras are rolling isn't staging I'm much more the expert in handling the SOTU speech than you are. Not that there's a specific science to it, you can see this exact same kind of staging every night on Fox, CNN and MSNBC, not to mention the soppy talk shows like Oprah and Ellen. It's all a matter of making sure spontaneous events that are likely to provide good TV happen in front of the cameras not behind them, nothing terribly difficult to understand, all you have to do is ask yourself why the involved parties didn't have this discussion in the green room.
>>Why else would they not have been introduced before?<<
good grief! maybe the Iraqi Lady just arrived from the airport? maybe the Texas couple stayed in their hotel room? maybe people were busy and other things to do? there are LOT'S of reasons they never met before besides the one and only reason you are sticking to.
it wasnt by luck that the camera was on them. They knew, and it was planned in advance that when the Prez spoke about them, the camera would be on them.
>>>There's only one good reason to save the introductions until they're on camera<<<
ok. glad you KNOW that...
>>>in the green room.<<<
i haven't ever watched Oprah or Ellen.. lol.. you need to get out of tv land more often.. there's this thing called real life... i bet the Marine parents and Iraqi lady could tell you about it..
Now who's stretching? Come one you get to go to the SOTU there's going to be a certain level of handshaking before hand involved, a handshake and a photo-op is one of the perks. And they're all seated and waiting when the President takes the stage, and Laura's got social skills she know how to give quick introductions. And yet it never happened, any introductions stayed at name only without the usual oneliner describing the person. Sorry there's NO other reason, just like there's no other reason tearful re-unions on Oprah aren't done in the green room, genuine first time emotions are too valuable to TV and politics to waste outside the camera's cone.
You've never watched any of the miriad of drippy daytime talk shows?! Not even when home sick? It's not like this concept is new, it goes at least as far back as Dinah Shore.
There is this thing called real life, and whenever it happens in front of a camera it's because somebody staged it. The Marine mom has already told us everything we need to know, they never met before, she had no idea who the other lady was until the President introduced them to America. There are no coincidences when the cameras are rolling, not all happy accidents are pure accidents, though they can still be purely happy.
yes...it was great.
we've had a llot of great moments this past few months at the democrats and liberal msm types.
nikos
More moments of schadenfreude are on the way.
STEEL CAGE MATCH: Zell Miller vs. Matthews...
I have a dream...
>>>It's not like this concept is new, it goes at least as far back as Dinah Shore. <<<
face it - you are one of the very few who thinks the SOTU speech is on par with daytime lazy house wife talk show garbage. and no, i don't watch the cr@p. the SOTU goes back at least as far as.... what? Dinah Shore? LOL
>> There are no coincidences when the cameras are rolling,<<
>>>There is this thing called real life, and whenever it happens in front of a camera it's because somebody staged it.<<<
>>>. The Marine mom has already told us everything we need to know,<<<
i cannot believe the ubsurd statements you continue to make.
ok.... you are an EXPERT on ALL things in tv land. there could be NO other scenario then the one you give (over and over). by the way, could you give me a tip on the next televised horse race? i'd like to put some money on the staged winner.
check out the posts F16Fighter, at least half the posts are differences between freepers dissagreeing on this..
Hmmm, really??...
Though it's only part of the equation.
There's Matthews who minutes after the SOTU was dwelling NOT of the content and mood of the event, but on an incident which may or may NOT have been "staged."
Chris Matthews demonstates just how petty a person he is...
Now on the OTHERHAND, would Crissy like to discuss the obvious fake theatrics of the Clintons?
>>>You've never watched any of the miriad of drippy daytime talk shows?!<<<
you know what expert? the more i read this, the more torked i get with you. if you really DID have a family member who fought in Iraq YOU would get that what happened last night between those women is as far from your sick little contrived "daytime talk shows" BS as you can get. camera or no camera.
Jeeeez, what do you think speculation is? When you have no compelling evidence of an assertion it's called speculation. The introduction was to coincide with his references to Iraq. When other than at that point would the introduction be made, during the SS portion of the speech?? Frankly, your points are getting silly now
Doesn't bother me that I'm one of the few that understand TV is TV. The SOTU has always been a media event, even when all media was print, it's one of the few opportunities a president gets to talk straight to the American people without interference from the media, they don't get to edit him, truncate him, or "contextualize" him, all they get to do is present him and after the fact discuss him. And because of that the SOTU tends to be the most orchestrated of all presidential events, the one chance a year the president gets to address the people without the media messing with him is a bad time to mess up, and a great time to hit on as many levels as possible. And as time has progressed it's become even more so, at least back in the all print days most papers would print the full text of most speeches, in the modern TV world presidents only get their full speech across on their inaugeration and the SOTU, everything else is soundbited if it's even covered. So the SOTU has to hit on all levels, which means it has to use all the tricks that are available to live TV, and staging emotional introductions is a very popular very effective trick.
Nothing absurd in my statements. Not an expert in all things, not claiming it, but this is a really old trick that gets used every single day in TV. It's easy, it takes a minimum of legwork, and it's incredibly effective.
Interesting that you mention horse races. Sporting events follow the exact same type of staging. Every time they Triple Crown hits TV they're hoping for a horse to win all three. They put the races together, give a strong incentive for the winner of the Derby to race in the Preakness, and if the same horse wins both the Belmont becomes a major show. That's staging, that's the exact level of staging I'm saying happened last night. I'm not saying it was "fixed", in fact I've said quite the opposite many times, but I am saying there was an ideal outcome which they did everything they could within the bounds of moral taste to have happen in front of the cameras and they got lucky. When you put two people together in a specific set of circumstances that's likely to create a predictable and desirable result that's staging, people are predictable enough that you generally don't need to do anymore staging than that, in fact since most people aren't very good actors it's generally a bad thing to do more staging than that because your results will be unconvincing if you're lucky enough to get any results at all.
don't go bringing any common sense in here now.. lol..
don't you know that "There is this thing called real life, and whenever it happens in front of a camera it's because somebody staged it. "??
lol..
You shouldn't be getting torked. I don't think what happened between these two women was sick little or contrived, but I know it was no accident it happened DURING the speech IN FRONT of the cameras. I have no doubt their reaction would have been identical no matter what circumstances they were under when introduced, but if it had happened in the White House during a private meeting with the first family then you wouldn't have gotten to witness and be moved by the scene. And there are people on the White House staff paid to make sure you get to see every moving scene possible, that's their job, to use every possibility within the bounds of good taste and good morals to drum up support for the President and his message and policies. You're assuming that in this case they didn't do their job, I'm assuming well paid professionals did what well paid professionals are supposed to do.
You just made my point, "the introduction was to coincide with his references to Iraq", when the cameras were rolling, not at some private meeting where the possible touching scene would accomplish no good for our President and via his policies our nation.
His common sense coincided exactly with my common sense. Cameras are pointed where cameras are pointed for a reason, things that happen where the camera is pointed happened there instead of elsewhere for a reason. The word used to describe the mechanical aspect of those reasons is "staging".
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