Radio Review:If Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's supporters need patience, spare a thought for the information-hungry public.
A diet of Barackillary might be better for you than a side order of McCain Oven Chips - on both shoulders - but the heavily hyped Super Tuesday refused to throw up a major significant development about Barackillary's face-off or McCain, who remains the hot-headed Republican frontrunner. Too much of the same news is indigestible. Still, you know what they say about a watched pot.
The message on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, Mon-Fri) and Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, Mon-Fri) on Super Tuesday was the same as it was on Ash Wednesday after the votes for the prospective US presidential candidates were counted. It could be weeks, even months before the Barackillary finally comes to the boil. (I think these food metaphors are past their sell-by date.) Every radio station reheated and served up the same stale bite-sized buzzwords over-and-over again. (I'm done with them now.)
Obama:Black. Inspirational. Inexperienced. Change.
McCain:Old. Temper. Moderate. Comeback.
Clinton:Woman. Experienced. Crying. Bill. "It's the economy, stupid."
Or, as columnist Dick Morris told Drivetime, "It's the single women, stupid," after Clinton took Manhattan - well, New York - and California, despite Oprah's Obamarama. Hamming it up as the war vet, McCain, who thinks America could stay in Iraq for 100 years, again wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell. I wish he would.
Newstalk 106's website generously redirected political junkies to their "colleagues" from National Public Radio (NPR) for late coverage of Super Tuesday. However, NPR has a policy of not going to town on Super Tuesday coverage. As Steve Inskeep said on Tuesday's Morning Edition (NPR.org, Mon-Fri), "We leave you extra space to think about your vote." Or maybe they realised they had run out of things to say. They did a funny little story on noisy roosters in California, instead.
RTÉ had Cathal Mac Coille in LA, Mark Little in west Hollywood, Robert Shortt in Washington, Myles Dungan in Berkeley and Charlie Bird on the moon. Okay, I made that up. He was in Alabama. Bird vox-popped locals who, on air, said they'd vote Clinton, but confessed to favouring Obama off-air. Everyone was looking for the race angle. (The very opposite was said about voters in New Hampshire.)
Morris told Mary Wilson on Wednesday: "There's residual racism in some of the older white votes for Hillary." Morris hates Clinton, so he's hardly objective, but this was still the worst kind of "When did you stop beating your wife?" political punditry.
Clinton and Obama try to bore holes and sink each other's campaigns, but I'm not convinced by Obama's non-mandatory universal healthcare, which appears to be almost as expensive as Hillary's mandatory proposal, his mixed signals on nuclear power while accepting money from Exelon, his supposed advocacy for displaced Maytag factory workers whose union backs Clinton, his haughty manner during debates and his use of celebrities to lure young voters. Even if I was 40, 50 or 60, this doesn't make me a racist.
On NPR's Morning Edition on Tuesday, cowboy humorist Baxter Black said black people tend to vote for black people and women for women (which is debatable). "The same is true for vegetarians, cowboys or paroled felons," he said. "It's natural to have someone in office who understands you."
IN OTHER NON-NEWS, The Tubridy Show (RTÉ Radio 1, Mon-Fri) talked about male bonding in more forced light entertainment on Wednesday, which inevitably became a "fear-of-gay foray". Ryan Tubridy asked about touching. The male panel giggled like schoolgirls.
Actor Peadar de Búrca said he wouldn't mind a kiss on the cheek or pat on the rear end. "That'd be the last chat we'd have," said Tubridy. Fear-of-gay forays allow straight men to feel desired, hunted and attractive, while recharging the batteries of their manhood.
Restaurant reviewer Chris Lowry said, "If I'm eating out with another man, I feel like writing, 'I'm out with a male friend, but there's nothing going on.' "
"Brokeback Dinner for two?" Tubridy asked de Búrca, before adding, "What you're saying is male bonds are strong, but ultimately you don't say much to each other." He meant "we", surely? Nobody said much about anything on this show, but a texter finally said men do talk sex, politics, art, architecture, relationships and emotions.
"This is real lads' stuff," said Tubridy in closing. "This was an utterly inconclusive, but engaging little stroll through modern manhood." He was only half right. It was conclusive, unintentionally so, by exposing a certain brand of insecure male sexuality, which loves to have a conspicuous mud bath in its own emotionally repressed backyard. And it was anything but engaging.
But if it's any consolation to the presenter, the only knob I wanted to touch during this discussion was the one on my radio.