The Press Box - The Best and Worst of the Democratic Convention. Plus: Listener Mail.

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker break down the best and worst moments from the 2020 Democratic National Convention (2:45). Then, Listener Mail, where they answer the question, “What is the worst pun meteorologists are using in 2020 and how do we stop it?” (42:40). Plus: The Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David, the Democratic Convention this week featured celebrity hosts. What I want to know is, will the Republicans be able to come up with celebrities next week? And who will they be? I love when people complain, by the way, about how, like, there's not, like, you know, Hollywood's too liberal of a place.

You know who never complains about this in good faith is that the conservative Hollywood celebrities who the only thing, the only reason why you've heard of Scott Bayo or Dean Kane or frankly James Woods in the past like decade is because they're, is because they're the conservatives that are, that are still out there. I don't know. I hope that we get, who are the real, man, who had some real good ones to be, Kid Rock? Yeah. I think Kid Rock might actually already be involved in the convention. Has John Voight done, I mean, John Void and Gary Sinise should have a two-man show

that's just like if it weren't for my conservative politics, no one would know who I was. Kelsey Grammer, who was just great. In that movie with Edge, money plane, highly endorsed that.

I don't know. There's a lot of good, there's a lot of really funny celebrities out there. I don't know why they can't get them on one place at one time, but... It's actually a bigger list than maybe I thought we'd be able to come up with.

Well, a big list of people that like you and I are familiar with, but not exactly a big list of like, you know, big name. Oh my God, I'm looking at an article right now that is chronicling some of this. This just in. This just in. This is a name that usually the same names over and over again. Here's one that I, maybe I'm dumb. I didn't know.

And I'm almost afraid to tell you because I know about the significant place he has in your childhood. Are you aware that John Rice Davies is a prominent conservative celebrity? What? Oh, my God. My childhood just got murdered today. What the Star Wars prequels didn't do, that just did. It's time for the press box, a part of the ringer, podcast network. Oh, media consumers.

Happy Friday. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here, as the Irish poet Seamus Haney once said, David, we got a lot to talk about today. We're going to answer your listener mail, including the question, what is the worst pun meteorologists are using in 2020, and how do we stop it? plus David guesses a strain pun headline and a politics-themed, overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, we're here to talk about the Democratic Convention, the virtual convention, which ended Thursday night with a short but fiery speech by Joe Biden.

First, let's talk about the convention as TV. Because I wrote down Wednesday night that after the changes the Democrats made because of the coronavirus, I didn't feel like I was watching a political convention. I felt like I was watching an award show. complete with celebrity hosts like Ava Longoria, Bastone, and Kerry Washington. And then on Thursday, Julie Lui Dreyfus comes out and she's doing bits. Just remember, Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he doesn't even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there. Yeah, it's all in the delivery, isn't it?

I don't want to pick too obvious a target, but if that had been, you know, Jeff Foxworthy, he could have done the same joke. But you wouldn't have had that awkward moment where you were looking at your wife wondering if you just heard a joke at all, you know? And that was, I think, sort of the schick for the whole night, right? Yeah. And I think at the end of the day, look, political conventions have been becoming TV shows for 50 plus years now. This is not a new trend. But something happened this year where I feel they adopted a whole different grammar of television. Yeah.

And it's somewhere between a source. studio show like we would see for the NBA, an award show. And with Julie Louise Dreyfus, especially last night, the arrested development V. Parks and Rec comedy zone with no laugh track, as you say, but jokes delivered to the camera in this kind of offhand manner. Okay. All of those were elements of it. And I have to say this.

First of all, I thought technologically presentation-wise this week was an enormous triumph for the Democratic Party but also politics at large. I mean, at large, I do, I think it was great. That said, the one point of comparison you didn't mention that I couldn't get away from was PBS. And I, there were times even during Barack Obama's soaring, soaring speech where I expected him to like, spend the next line thanking us for donations and telling us a tote bag was on the way.

I was watching Kamala Harris and there was a little bit of that like it wasn't just a donation drive it was like there were parts so much of it felt like a British stage production trying to make its way out of a or make hay out of a slow zoom sort of you know I mean like trying to like fill up

the TV screen but part of what that led to and this goes back to your Julia Louis-Dreyfus point is a real focus on the words right? They managed to produce it heavily

but not overproduce it in such a way that you were paying attention to every little thing that was going on in the background or like, you know, things that were, there's no distraction from the text of the speeches. And in that sense, despite it being so modern

media friendly, it was very much a writer's production, right? This was, it was like a, this was a David Mamet play. You know, this was like, we were, we are here for the words on the page and for their presentation. And, and, and I thought, you know, it was like I said, a huge success. Yeah, I feel like we need Greenwald and Ryan and fantasy in here to talk about the show running of the Democratic National Convention.

Yeah. Something I never thought I'd say. And by the way, if we want to throw one more element in there along with, as you say, the PBS Telethon, where Kamala Harris is going to say, if you like programs like Doughton Abbey, please consider a contribution. How about with that Bruce Springsteen bumper music, did you get a little bit of a Chevy truck commercial kind of vibe every time they would swing between segments? Well, there was, especially in the sort of, well, the coronavirus era, as we've talked about this before, has brought us a lot of sort of sameness and heartstring tugging across the commercial board. And all of the, all of the sort of Joe Biden.

the real man promo packages evoked that a little bit. In the world that we live in now, and part of this is like, it's not just COVID era. It's also like Super Bowl, like big Super Bowl spots and emotional ad campaigns and stuff, but there isn't that much of a difference between why I drive this truck and, like, I lost my family to several horrible tragedies

and I'm running for president. Yeah, well, there are certainly emotional, they're different, they're kind of like subtle emotional notes. I totally agree. Let's do a very simple convention breakdown, and you're going to hear me trying not to say the words convention winners and losers. But that's basically it. We'll break it down into stuff that was great, stuff that was kind of odd but likable, and stuff that did not work.

Category one, great stuff. Joe Biden's speech on Thursday night. It was short, David, 24 minutes and change versus 56 minutes for Hillary Clinton four years ago. even counting the applause, that's an incredible difference. But it was very Biden, red meat to the camera, and including some very, very useful formulations like this one. Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation. He's failed to protect us.

He's failed to protect America. And my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable. Yeah, I thought that I there were parts of the week where it felt like Trump's How do I say this? Trump's broadly defined badness, evil, depending on your point of view, was so enormous That it was hard for certain people to wrap their their words around sort of it was hard to really you know I thought watching Bernie Sanders several times, you remember the lovely days when this was all about the creep of authoritarianism? And it seems like the problems have gotten so much worse that it's really hard to kind of point your finger and say, this is why we need to vote this guy out of office.

It's not, you don't have the vocabulary for it. Joe Biden found the words for it right there. He managed to chisel it into a perfect point. And that was really great. Yeah. And it was by making it simple. It was by making it Bidenesque and not not. necessarily going for soaring language. He did have some. I thought the wrap-up of his speech was very, very well written. But most of it was Joe Biden looks straight into a camera and tells you what he thinks, which is exactly what Joe Biden should be doing and giving a political speech. Shouldn't be trying to be Barack Obama. Shouldn't be trying to be Donald Trump or anybody else. He should just like he has gotten this far by being Joe Biden and he should keep doing that.

I was at the convention four years ago, the Democratic convention. I thought one thing the Hillary Clinton convention utterly failed to do was define Hillary Clinton as a person outside of politics, outside of what you stood for. And again, that was a very hard task given all the misogyny in the world and all the Trumpy stuff in the world. But I didn't feel they ever really did it during that convention. I feel Joe Biden's team pounded that rock all four days of this convention. Yep. Largely with video packages, partly with Jill Biden, partly with packages about his son, Bo Biden.

But they, you came away with the sense, and I think I'm stealing this from Gloria Borgier, but that empathy is Joe Biden's superpower. Yep. This is a guy who will actually feel your pain, no matter what Bill Clinton said way back when. And that to me was maybe the most important part, again, for most voters.

I understand some people are like, well, it should have had more policy. Should have more of this and this? I'm like, I don't know. Joe Biden is a good man who will help contain the coronavirus. Seems like the bumper sticker you wanted people to come away from this convention with, and they did. The coronavirus thing was interesting in that it seemed like this was the first time. Well, I mean, making it a political issue, especially from, you know, the dim side has always been tough, right?

Especially because you don't want it to hamper what minimal efforts are going on in the White House to try to, you know, stem the the advance of the virus. But they really did make coronavirus a campaign point this week. And I mean, just straight up saying, here are the three things he's going to do. And one of them is like, stop this plague, right? And again, the way that they presented it, that they managed to make it seem like a tangible political argument, you know, or, you know, tangible concept. It was really, really well done.

And you're right about the empathy. Over and over again, they were able to make him seem really empathetic. And I think, you know, it's in the same breath, very, very human. I thought that the biggest, not just defining him as a human being, and obviously, Bo Biden looms so large this week,

I mean, he might have had more screen time than his dad. You know, I mean, he was, it was a huge and important element of the week. But separate from his own biography, I thought that the most important thing that they tried to accomplish during the first three days of the convention was to make it seem like Joe Biden

didn't want to be president. Or that he was only doing this out of a sense of obligation to country and to humanity and to cause. It's been called to duty. Absolutely. It was. And there have been many times in our lives where we've seen politicians try to do that. I mean, listen, every political campaign, every campaign season is marked by, especially this one, all these big name people who were just begging to get dragged, kicking and screaming into the race.

And eventually they just got to ride in on a horse of their own construction or whatever. But they made it seem like, and we'll come back to this, like Biden was doing this out of empathy and out of obligation, out of a sense of responsibility and duty. And then Joe Biden himself got on the microphone, you know, stood up in front of everybody and made it an argument about how these are things that we have to do. It wasn't just about him. It was about how he is part of the us, part of the we, part of this country who we have to do these things in order to move forward. It's not a partisan issue. It is a community issue. And Jill Biden made that metaphor you're talking about explicit in her speech. Joe Biden put together, put his broken family back together after tragedy twice.

He is the guy who can put this broken nation back together. Yeah. She said it explicitly. It was one of those moments where you went, whoa. And, and, you know, and again, that, that is his superpower, right? You put it front and center. Number two, David, on my great list, the staging of the speeches. Democrats are robbed of this giant cheering crowd at the five.

I serve for them. So what do we do, they ask? Well, when Dr. Jill Biden comes out, they put her in an empty school. Guess what people like David and I are worried about right now. Kids going back to school. Let us triple underline that on our piece of notebook paper by putting her a former teacher, a current teacher, in an in an empty school. Okay. Michelle Obama. Let's put that camera up real close to her so that it looks like she's just having a conversation, with you on Monday night. That was incredibly effective. The only one I thought they really got wrong was Kamala Harris because she was on that big stage and they hadn't quite figured out how to do the stage yet on Wednesday night. So she looks like she was on Scott Van Pelt's Sports Center set. You know, you're kind of going, this is awfully big. There's a lot of space around here. But you notice they fixed that on Thursday night. They went in really tight on Biden. And it worked once again. Yeah. I mean, I thought I thought Harris's speech was a triumph. but I agree about the staging.

It seemed like, like your Michelle Obama point was, was a good one. They made that decision really, really deliberately, right? I mean, whether or not it was effective to you as a viewer, I think it was effective overall quite a bit. And it was a tight, tight zoom. So tight that I was like, did they even, did they forget that there's a crawl on all these networks,

you know, because it was good. But then over the course of the news, of the speech, you realize they pulled back. It was such a steady, like reverse zoom. I'm sure that's not the right word for it. That by the time the speech ended, it wasn't, it was, it was about, you know, collarbone up. You could see your hands making points.

You know, I mean, she was, like, it was, it was a physical, emotional thing. And you sort of, it transformed from a one on one, from a conversation, like you said, to a speech, to a, to a rallying cry. And that's what, and that really worked. you set that in contrast to her husband's speech. And it was, the camera was very still. You know,

it was a very straightforward, like I said, like, thank you for watching this channel, sort of, like sort of camera choice. But his, but his delivery is obviously on another planet

than every other living human, right? I mean, it was, the power is in, the power is in his mouth and his eyes, you know, and the words that come out.

Kamla Harris, I felt like I had to watch it under the assumption that every choice, everything that we saw was made with the same sort of deliberation. And I think that what was really important for her was one to, again, the words are what mattered, right? I mean, it was introducing herself.

It was talking about her mom, talking about her family, talking about her place sort of in the world. But it was also making her look, making the speech look different and making it, making giving her a sort of gravitas right that this wasn't just a pre-prepared video package of any of these other people that we've that we've are that we'd seen over the course of the week right and

sometimes there were sometimes where you would watch was it night what night was it where the secretaries of state were on there from california new and was it california in new york that um they were talking about voting rights and i stopped i stopped and was just like wait am i supposed to know who this guy is and because i thought it was a man a senator giving a speech or a congressman giving a speech, you know, because it did have a sort of very, there was a very like, here's a speech in my living room sameness to a lot of what we saw. And they made Kamala Harris's speech feel different than that, despite the fact that you're right. It did feel like you were worried she was going to get, you know, assaulted by a by a boom mic at various points in the

speech or something. So my point number three is very related to that. Shorter speeches across the convention, again, cutting the kind of Chuck Schumer's down. from what, like 15, 20 minutes to something smaller than that, made those set piece speeches feel much more special. So Barack Obama felt special. Michelle Obama felt special. Jill Biden felt special. They just had so much more power because they cut those other speeches down.

We didn't need to hear from other Democrats for 20 minutes. It really didn't need to be. And those speeches, when you watch them during a quote unquote normal convention, they're not saying anything. They're just repeating, you know, and they're just kind of. have boring political speeches. I thought that, again, a choice out of necessity turned out to be a really good choice. I could give you a lot more here, David. A lot of the video packages, including the one about Biden's relationship with John McCain, I thought was really effective,

almost all the family video packages about Biden, Gabby Gifford's speech, which was talk about lump in your throat moments. People like Elizabeth Warren, John Kerry. I come away with this idea, and I'm not sure I want to how much I want to invest in this, that the Biden team may be, be more media savvy than we thought? What do you think? Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean,

I guess that's for, you know, that's for the eventual, you know, campaign books to tell us. But I think what I felt over the course of the week was that because of the circumstances, a lot of the decisions are probably being made by a very narrow slice of the campaign team,

right? That suddenly the, like, you know what the ringer video team is, right? I mean, you, You know the guys and gals who do this thing.

Like, when they, when they, when we're in a crunch time, they make magic, right? And this happens, this is in all walks of life, it's not just the video team, but I can point at these people who are normally down the hall or whatever. When you're under the gun and when suddenly all, everything that you were playing on doing is out the window, uh, real incredible things can happen, especially when it's a, when it's, you look at the people and you're like, you know how to produce video content for the internet. You are in charge now. Like, forget about the 15.

people who were your bosses yesterday. Go figure this out and make it awesome. And really incredible things can come from that, you know? Um, absolutely. I just, I just thought it was, I thought it, the team is, regardless of how it happened, you're right. I mean, the Biden campaign team comes out of this looking really good. And if, and, and this is a separate point in the one I just made. The, you know, one of the big teams of the week was, was party unity, you know, with everybody's pitching in. And one has to also assume that there's probably all. a lot of very talented people who are pitching in to a, you know, to make a week like this as exceptional as it could be.

So that's the great stuff from the convention. Now, let's do a category called odd but likable. Okay. Number one, the 50 states plus territories roll call, which was truly incredible. Here's just a taste. This is Cozy Watkins, Democratic activist from North Carolina. I've been doing this for a long time. So let me just be plain.

Black people, especially black women, are the back. of this party, and if we don't show up, Democrats don't get elected. I'm putting on my mask, and we're going to every corner in North Carolina to help organize because we need to make sure everyone shows up for Joe Biden. He would show up for us. North Carolina cast 39 votes for Bernie Sanders and 83 votes for the next president of the United States, Joe Biden. Was that the coolest America, the beautiful thing you have ever seen? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that whole roll call was just really spectacular.

And that was one of the real high points. I just, I mean, there was so much of this week that it felt like, you know, it was just absolute brilliance that came out of necessity. And that, I think, was one of the, you say, you know, weird, but strangely compelling or whatever. I mean, it was, but it was just, that was really cool. Yeah, and I should note that only by the standards of political conventions is a weird because political conventions themselves are incredibly weird. So this was just doing something different and it worked. Another one on my list, David, the night one closing musical act.

So Ava Longoria signs off and we go to Stephen Stills, rock legend and Billy Porter, an actor who's done a ton of TV and Broadway. And they're singing for what it's worth. And like the network, I think I was watching MSNBC, they took like 10 seconds. of it and then Brian Williams and then Brian Williams like, well, that's that's night one of the convention. I was like, wait, what was that? I texted you and I was like, did you see

this? Was I totally imagining that this happened? That was absolutely incredible. I totally agree. You know, there was a lot of, I understand like the political like the, you know, the necessities, the exigencies of programming

television, especially during a political you know, a news channel during a political convention. But there were so many times this week where whatever channel I was watching, you would see whoever, the cast of, of, you know, talking heads on there, talking about the speech that had just happened to the speech that was to come. And then silent in like the picture and picture, you would see, you know, Avalongoria and you'd just be like, real, like this is not who we should be hearing right now. Like I really like, like I love you, you know, I love you Brian Williams, but I would much rather hear what, you know, Stephen Stills is jamming right now. like then whatever you think you're got to say. Just the celebrity, the imbalance was so great.

But yeah, that was, that was, it was always interesting to see what was going on. And how weird is that just to see like, you see Julia Louis Drive is doing a thing. She's doing a bit and you don't get to hear the bit, you know, you get to, you get to hear like Fox News say that, you know, whatever. Anyway, go on. Well, this is, you actually brought us to my final note here on odd but likable. from the DNC, newscasters emoting all week. I mean, I don't know, I don't know if you notice this too, but I just feel like this was one of the strangest weeks ever on cable news.

Because everyone was caught up in this kind of somewhere between awe at what they had just watched. They were happy. They were in some cases going on these kind of interesting emotional jags. This is right after Obama's speech. Here's Nicole Wallace, almost choking up on MSNBC. I say this about Obama. I have a hunch that every living former president would speak from the same deep well of despair. Obama's speech shook me because of his despair laid bare.

And if you have been the president, you probably feel you probably have a well of fury that started the first day of the transition. when Donald Trump and his son tried to set up a back channel to Russia to go around the intelligence community. There are many times, David, when cable news sounds like the way I feel when I'm watching

a political speech. And I thought in a way, and maybe an accidental way, I don't know how, but it kind of captured that this week. What did you make of that? Nicole Wallace is an interesting one.

I don't want to like spend too long on her, but it seems like she's spent a very long time learning how to be professional, not professional, learning how to be a television professional. And she's found her real magic, her real superpower in her humanity. You know, I mean,

and anytime that she's making a point with gusto, you can see it again without the sound. It's worth listening to. But yeah, I agree. There was a lot of very human reactions to what was going to, you know, to everything. I mean, even today I was watching MSNBC and Andrea Mitchell was on with John Meacham, and John Mitcham went into this like monologue that was just as powerful as could be.

And they basically were just like, and it went back to Andrea Mitchell and she was just like, this is maybe the most important moment in our friendship, you know? It was like so, there's like this very human, it's very human, but like formal interactions going on at the same time. It's, it was, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's the Trump era. I don't know if it's the weird, the surprisingly personal nature of how all these speeches feel when the cameras, like we said,

are zoomed in so tight and they're speaking directly to you. It does seem like everybody, even on Fox, was like, was emotionally caught off guard by a lot of what happened this week. So I completely agree. And I think it's a bunch of cross currents there. I think they were genuinely surprised at how well the DNC came off, given the technological challenges we've been talking about. I think there was some kind of the moment of history,

taking in that moment of history of Kamala Harris's nomination. There was a lot of that. There was a lot of awe at the speeches generally. And then I think absolutely there is a get rid of Trump. factor in this absolutely. One really small point that relates back to how Nicole Wallace was reacting and to how this is a

it was just a different playing field. There was a point at the end of Obama's speech, Barack Obama speech, where he said basically don't let them take that power away from you, talking about, you know, the other side is depending on your cynicism for you to not vote, right?

He's like, don't let them take that power away from you And he was building and building and building. And this is the point where in another, if this was a in-person convention, where the crowd would have been screaming and his voice would have been raised and raised and raised. And it would have been progressing to this, you know, ultimate climax of signoff. He took it down at that point because he had the opportunity to. He didn't have to fight with the crowd or compete with the crowd. And he went back to say when he closed with, you know, you can give our democracy new meaning.

sort of in a reverse of the way that Michelle Obama's speech was constructed, he was talking directly to every single person that was listening. And he was able to make it so intimate because there was no conference hall that he had to fill up. And it's a small thing and an obvious thing.

But that, I think, is what, that's what, I mean, everybody watching that felt something, you know, and it's because you're not watching a normal thing. You're listening to someone talk to you. And it can be really powerful. Totally. I was watching CNN late Wednesday night. And they did a split screen of Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon.

Now, usually it's just one of those two feeding it to guests. But they just did this really long segment themselves. And they were just playing the dozens on Donald Trump. I mean, they were just like slaughtering Trump for like, it must be like five or ten minutes. And I'm just, I'm watching it. I'm like, what is happening? I harvested one clip. I just want you to hear, the first voice you're going to hear is Don Lemons,

but listen to how Chris Cuomo closes this segment. Are they talking about, have they ever seen this president try to speak English or deliver a sentence with correct grammar, or a complete statement, or string a thought together? There is no worry about hypocrisy when you were looking to bring hateeration in this dance. Mary J. Blige.

Oh, my God, that was amazing. You should have seen the Michael Scott look on his face when he cites the quote, Mary J. Blige. It just looks at the camera like he's so proud of himself. Unbelievable. What a moment. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious

that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. senior nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. Steve Bannon, the architect of Trump's 2016 victory, David. Ruro. Was arrested Thursday after he allegedly defrauded donors and his We Build the Wall nonprofit. He was arrested on a boat. That was a big fact. And several jokes came out of that.

One, this is the plot of the pilot of arrested development. This is a clear cut case. a boater fraud. Oh my God. And my favorite. Finally, we've built a wall around Steve Bannon. Thanks to Jake Christie, Scott Woodruff and Chris Cleary. But wait, David, there's more Bannon because before the arrest,

did you see his appearance, tanned, rested, and ready Steve Bannon when he beamed into Fox News last Sunday? Oh, my God. Scroll down your Google Doc if you have not. Yeah. a lot of great jokes out of this one. Steve Bannon looks like the vengeful father of every Albanian terrorist

killed by Liam Neeson. Steve Bannan is the Marina Foreman. Every Florida drug smuggler really needs to know. This is from Jason Concepcion. If Ben Franklin ran a racist Jimmy Buffett fanzite. And my favorite,

want to feel old? This is the kid from Jerry McGuire. Thanks to Isaac Chips for that. I didn't see that clip, but I did see him walking out of the courthouse after he posted bail or whatever looking. I mean, I love it. I love that

he's like put on weight, got real tan, let his hair grow long. I mean, and to be, for all of those things and then to be on the 150 foot yacht when the, when the government comes in to snatch you up. I mean, that is just, he's living the life, man.

I mean, it might be the life of like a bond villain, but he's living it. Kudos to that guy. Finally, David, the Republicans, are putting together a convention guest list to try to outdo the Democrats. Democrats had Barack and Michelle Obama, Colin Powell, Cindy McCain. The Republicans have gunwielding St. Louis couple Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who you'll remember menaced Black Lives Matter protesters in June.

Wait, they're actually going to be at the convention? They are going to be at the convention. It's a weird, I know that we live in a very divided age, but I was not, I was literally unaware that there was a positive take on that meme or whatever it was that there was a counterpoint I guess to the memes that I saw about that.

It was an overworked Twitter joke to write the bat that gave the world COVID-19 will also speak at the Republican National Convention. Thanks to Devo. If you found the perfect opening act for Eric and Don Jr., congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, in the notebook dump, David.

let us continue with the convention and do some stuff that did not work so well. Because it was not perfect. Can we nominate Mike Bloomberg? Oh. Yeah. So just so I get this straight, Mike Bloomberg's effort to win the nomination was terrible. He went up only winning American Samoa.

So after spending a billion dollars on that failed campaign, he has contributed only 25 million to the Democratic Party and progressive groups. Meanwhile, as discussed on this pod, he laid off thousands of campaign employees who were led to believe they'd have work in health insurance through November. But he not only got a spot of the convention, he got the pre-Biden spot. What the hell? How did that happen? All that money, I think. I mean, I think they're, you know, for all the money, he said he would spend.

just answered the question. Yeah, he said he would spend however much money to... But where's the money? Well, a lot of people are asking that question. And maybe this was part of the deal. You know, maybe this, this, you know, this, this slot opens up the coffers or whatever, but, um, yeah, I mean, listen, they, this was a weird speech for a lot of reasons. I, I forgot, I meant to try to find audio. Maybe we can find this of, there was one bit where he, he kept trying to do these gags. Like, he would try to do, like, funny, like, 80s comedian, like sound effect, like I talk radio sound effects.

There's one thing, where he's talking about, Trump says he has a great economy and Bloomberg doesn't just goes like, huh? Like, it's like cartoonish. And then he gets,

he's like, hey, when he's talking about how he's been a member of like all the political parties, he's trying to be real self-effacing whenever, it was odd.

You know, I mean, they gave Kasek a big spot. And Bloomberg's not, you know, I mean, it's not crazy that they would put Bloomberg there, but he's not exactly a democratic standard bearer and didn't do anything in this primary

to make it seem like he was any more of that than we would have thought six months ago or a year ago. I don't know why he was there. I don't know why it was there. It was a very odd speech. But if this, you know, he definitely has his adherence and he definitely has a lot of money to spend.

And I thought, you know, one of the kind of wonders about this convention is that it can be consumed and it's going to be consumed piecemeal. going forward for the next month, for a month or so. And no one has to watch Mike Bloomberg if they don't want to. Great tweet from Casey Morel.

Someone please isolate that Bloomberg incredulous, huh? And compare it to the Tim Allen home improvement noise. That's a great tweet. Talking about people who are going to appear at the Republic celebrities of their Republican convention. Tim Allen may be the only one. Tim Allen available. Also like this from Alex Burns in the New York Times,

Bloomberg, whose candidacy imploded because he could not defend his own policing record and treatment of women, gets a prime speaking slot at a convention dominated by themes of racial justice and gender equality. And speaking of which, David, and probably also on this list, Bill Clinton is still a Democratic convention speaker? Bill Clinton, you can be canceled and also speak at the Democratic National Convention? This is where we are in this calculation. I will say this. one of I thought my big takeaways

from Barack Obama's President Obama's speech and that made me gave me some amount of solace about Clinton was it it felt like that Barack has firmly taken Bill Clinton's role as explainer in chief or as communicator in chief

no matter who the president is President Obama will always be there to help make the case and moving Bill Clinton to the sort of at a bare minimum on the unnecessary stack I thought, you know, was a positive, a positive overall. So he's been demoted to to Vice Explaner-in-Chief and Barack Obama has taken the Clinton roll from the 08 and 12 conventions.

I like that. I think that's good. We could do a whole category on stuff Trump tweeted during the conventions. There was the Goodyear boycott. There was the support for Laura Lumer and on and on and on. I do want to talk about the fake Alexandria. Casio-Cortez controversy that was generated by NBC. Oh, yeah.

Tuesday, AOC submitted a procedural motion seconding Bernie Sanders' nomination president. This happens all the time for losing presidential candidates. AOC, of course, was one of Bernie's big early endorsers. NBC tweets this. In one of the shortest speeches of the DNC, rep Akazio-Cortez did not endorse Joe Biden. aOC responds via Twitter that this tweet sparked an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol and now the miss info you created is circulating on other networks indeed it was the new york post front page on wednesday reads ao c joe oh my god with a subhead of socialist firebrand doesn't

even mention biden in speech fox news ran with the angle all day and i saw there was a margaret Sullivan, Colin about this watch, post. This is one of those things that you go back and try to correct if you're NBC, but it's too late, right? There is no effective correction. Like, what is the effective correction after 24 hours of right-wing misinformation? Yeah. It doesn't matter. And it's somehow they need, all these outlets need is just a millimeter of legitimacy given to a crazy subject by another network. right, by a legitimate outlet, and then they're off to the race. Absolutely.

I mean, Dave Wagel always jokes about Dems and Disarray, right? That's the story people really want to write. His left wing of the party is not on board with Joe Biden. Never mind that AOC was doing a normal convention thing. Anyway, all right, a couple more things I want to get to with the convention. First, David, is this kind of slickly produced, highly remote political convention going to be, and here I'm pausing for dramatic effect, the, new normal. Oh, I hope so. Is that an okay answer? Yes. There was absolutely nothing about this week.

And I say this is someone that is like, you know, likes being amongst like-minded people, you know, I mean, there's, I like going to big sporting events and, you know, being at the hotel and whatever. I mean, like, there's, there's positive aspects to this, but I didn't miss as a viewer at home, there is nothing about the traditional convention that I missed at all. And they've done a really, you know, fine job over the past couple of decades of making this live audience spectacle

into a television product. But what this week accomplished what was about 20 years overdue, which is that this should be a wholly television-driven product. And if the, you know, hundreds, thousands of people there in live crowds is what was holding them back. And thank God they weren't there this time. I don't miss. I mean, I'm sure there will continue to be a functional live human being element to this going forward.

And there should be. But presentation wise, I hope this is the new normal. Lastly, and this is to be unpacked over the next week. But what do we think the Republican version of the virtual convention is going to look like next week? I mean, it'll look a lot the same. I think that technical difficulties, notwithstanding, I mean, I think that there's, you could do, you could put out a vastly inferior product

that would still feel about 90% the same, right? I think that we know that they're like constructing sets in the Rose Garden right now, right? I mean, they're going to, Trump is going to make significant use of the White House grounds. So that will be a distinction. and if I'm not mistaken, there is more of an in-person element

to this going on in Charlotte as we speak or people are arriving there as we speak. But practically, I don't know. What do you think it's going to look like? So I think there's a possibility of a Fox News effect here, which is Fox News is worse than MSNBC and CNN, but it is at some visceral level more effective than MSNBC and CNN. So you could have something that doesn't,

not have the production skill of the DNC, but has some, you know, appeal to the TV audience that is stronger than the DNCs? I don't know. I'm still playing with that thought, but it's going to look like Fox News. That is the tone and tenor, right? We're not going to be saying this looks like Parks and Rec next week. No, no, no, no, no. No, I think it'll be a little bit more lo-fi, and it'll feel almost exactly the same in terms of

of presentation, you know, I mean, to the vast majority of people watching. I mean, it would be kind of great if Fox News was just like just a full partner in the whole thing. I was sure they're not going to be. I was calling into Hannity last night. I was going to say, if Trump's entire acceptance speech was just was done over the phone to the Fox and Friends crew, would that be? Do you think that would be better than what we're going to get? Yeah, we're going to trade Avalongoria for Will Kane. What a, what a swap that would be. All right. Let's do a little listener mail day before we get out of here. All right. Did you see everybody on Twitter doing the post the Vanity Fair cover from the month you were born?

bit this week. Oh, no. That was kind of fun. You know, some people could say, hey, look, naked Sylvester Stallone was on a motorcycle the month I was born in the 80s. Tina Brown was the editor of many of those issues of Vanity Fair, of course. And Brown was famous for doing high low,

highbrow and lowbrow journalism in the same issue. One of the covers that was posted, September 1989 Vanity Fair, I'm going to read you the cover lines. Tell me if this is not the ultimate in Tina Brown High-Low.

Are you ready? Okay. Headline number one. The Women Who Still Sleep with the Rolling Stones by Kevin Sessams. Okay. Headline number two. Paraguay, a despot falls by Alex Shubatoff. The women sleeping with the Rolling Stones,

the fall of the strong man of Paraguay. That was the Tina Brown magic at its height. This is from listeners Max Baumgart and Chris Vanini was the theme for the Democratic National Convention, the old guys still got it. Oh, man. Oh, man. I thought that, I mean, that's, I feel like if we had more of a traditional campaign, we probably would be getting a lot more of old guys still got energy from team Biden.

I think because the terms of engagement have sort of shifted, you know, I mean, it's sort of, now it's just a given that he's going to. going to be sitting at home doing video conferences that he can give these speeches that really suit his style looking directly into the camera and everything else. The message was almost like the old guy doesn't need to got it. The old guy's got just enough to do what we need to do right now. You know, he's got a little. He's got some. He's got a whiff of what he used to have. And that's better than what we had. That's better than the other option. You know? Yes. And you're right. And you know what? The old guy still got it often really,

is the old guys got just enough, right? Yeah. The recent like Martin Scorsese movie, it's not going to be in the classic Scorsese pantheon, but Scorset, the old guy's just got enough. The new Bob Dylan album, right? He's just got enough. Yeah, he's got a little,

he makes you remember when he had it. Like, that's, if you got enough to, to make people nostalgic, then maybe you still got it. Did we mention this earlier that absolutely nobody was a bigger beneficiary at the virtual convention? I'm not sure I would ever imagine myself saying this than Joe Biden. I mean,

absolutely pulled everything positive out of that guy. It is going to be the absolute opposite for Trump, taking away the arena show for Trump next week. That is going to be absolutely incredible to watch. This is from listener Scott Mitchell. I do not believe the former Detroit Lions quarterback. Has Biden-era Camelot already begun? Both the media and the Democrats seem to yearn for that relationship,

but is it still possible? I'm not sure we're ever going to see high Kennedy Camelot ever again in American media. God for that. But there was a lot of, there was a lot of Biden love on cable news this week. Uh-huh. And on Twitter. There, there really was. And how the media treats Biden after treating him, I think, extremely skeptically in the primaries. And even through him probably winning the nomination, probably even up to a couple of weeks ago, their relationship is something we should do a full segment on because that will be fascinating. Yeah, I think that's right.

But I also think that Biden, team Biden, Biden himself, however you want to do it, have set the table really well for it. And I don't mean just the autobiographical stuff because, I mean, Biden's always been open about that. He's not, there's no heavy hand in this. I mean, it was, this is, this is what makes him the man who he is. But I think more particularly, he hasn't made, he's, they worked really hard for him to not be a target of, derision or skepticism to the news media, right? I mean, it's almost like getting out of his own way. And they did a really good job of that this week, both as I talked about before,

kind of making it seem like he was doing this out of a sense of honor and obligation. But also, you know, I think was it Michelle Obama who said, you know, Joe's not perfect. He'd be the first person to tell you that. You know what I mean? Like, he's just a regular guy. And there's going to be he's going to screw up.

You know what I mean? Like, he's just anybody else. And I think, I think that, you know, Barack Obama made a really strong argument for how Biden, can be a continuation of that legacy, but Biden is really, Biden is not being too heavy-handed

about being some transformative political figure. No. And I think that by kind of keeping it low-key, it's much, I think it's much easier. I mean, it just makes it, it's much more of a straight line to like, okay, let's embrace this guy's human background because it is a really touching significant story. But I don't know if Camelot's a what I would say.

I mean, Camelot's not, the tragedy isn't so implicit, right? I mean, it's just, or explicit. Yeah, not at that point anyway. This is a story that, yes, it's catnip to the media in so many ways, but it should be. It's an effective and important story for all of us to know. Listener Lee DiAngelo checks in with a pun. She writes, two hurricanes are forecasted to come our way in the Gulf next week at the same time. Every meteorologist is making this joke.

Seeing double? No, you don't need to check your vision. it's 20-20. Woo! That definitely feels like a meteorological level joke. No offense to America's meteorologists. But 2020 vision, I feel, is already been a, was overworked on like January 2nd.

So glad to know it's coming to America's weather forecasts. This is from listener Will Ogburn, who's a social media producer. One of the best segments y'all have done lately was the what writers say when sharing an article they haven't read here's a version of that from my industry. If a usually serious person retweets a meme or video with the captions spot on or especially so good, I know that meme video is going to be something I would never laugh at if I found it on my own.

Thank you, Will Ogburn. I got to say, so we're making fun of the way journalists respond to the work of other journalists. So I did a piece last week. All the tweets are. always read Brian Curtis. These are the things I made fun of. Always read Brian Curtis.

Fun piece, exclamation point. So all the things we outlined as possibly insincere praise, people who listen to this show just put that onto my article. So I just have completely destroyed my mention. I'm never mentioning this again. I think all praise is great on social media. You just, journalists should just go off and praise people,

and I'm never going to criticize that again. Finally, David, from our pal Ed Wyatt, he sends along some more Australian news audio. Remember when we had Cigra regrets guy on last week? This is newscaster Basil Zemplis from Channel 7 in Perth. Zemplis was doing some NBA highlights, NBA very big in Australia. But Basil apparently did not renew his league pass subscription this year, because listen to these highlights. one of the NBA's biggest stars is in hot water on the eve of the playoffs.

Giannis and Tidokatomato was rejected for headbutting during the Bucks penultimate regular season game against the wittes. Oh my gosh. That's not good. The Greek freak and Portland's Damien Lilliard scored a remarkable 61 points to get the blazers over the line. So mispronouncing Janus's last name, totally understandable. Totally, yeah. Damon Lilliard, we probably should have checked with somebody before we went on air with the Dame highlights. I don't know, man.

I like Damon Lilliar. Damon Lilliard. Yeah. Damon Lilliard is a great alter ego. Wasn't he one of the scream movies? I can't remember. All right. Time for David Shuemaker guesses a strain pun headline.

All right. Monday's pun above a story about Matthew McConaughey interviewing Dr. Anthony Fauci was Fauci gives McConaughey true directives. This week's pun comes from Andrew Greif, basketball writer for the LA Times. It's a pun book title from the new memoir of Nick Nurse, Toronto Raptors head coach, an NBA champion. By the way, David, this is the only sports book this year that will come with a blur from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. I am not kidding. That is actually on the book. Wow.

The title of the book is one word. One word. it's a pun What was Nick Nurse's Strained PUN This is the title of the book Or the title of the article This is the title of the book

The fact that it's not Good Night Nurse Or more strainedly Good Right Nurse I think is Really disheartening So it's one word It's based on Raptor

Rapt One word One word One word Raptor Raptor Simple as can be, David. RAPT, RAPT, wrapped?

Keep thinking. Maybe a little bit of a religious connotation. Rapture? Rapture. That is the name of the book. Wow. Rapture. 15 teams, four countries, one NBA championship,

and how to find a way to win, damn near anywhere. Buy it now and get a Justin Trudeau, blurb with the purchase price. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Almeida, production magic by Erica Servantes. We're back Monday. Please join us and don't bring any of that a hateration into this dancerie.

Mary J. Blige. See you then, David. Go edit out the good right nurse so I can just use that for my review of this book. Absolutely. Ringer.com. Coming soon to the ringer.com. See you, David.