So I’m watching Keith Olbermann last night. KO is, in my never to be humble opinion, a beacon of sanity in an otherwise bat s--t crazy world. Him and Rachael Maddow. But sorry, "Raych," your time slot cuts into my primetime (and quite frankly I find her show to be just a KO retread designed for people who wonder what Keith Olbermann would be like as a thirtysomething female with contacts and the same haircut. Rachael, if you’re reading this, I heart you and talk to the MSNBC brass and see if you can’t get David Gregory’s time slot. Lord knows he isn’t doing anything with it.)
So, Keith Olbermann last night. I have Dish Network HD-DVR. Dish Network is absolutely the only way to watch television. If you don’t believe me, just try it out for a while. Record like 300 hours of programming to the hard drive. Pause, rewind and fast forward live TV. Record something while you’re watching something else. Total Awesomeness. After a couple of weeks you will want to marry it and bear its children. It’s just that good. (And no you snippy little bastards I don’t work for Dish Network. I just know good stuff when I see it.)
I promise I will get to the point after the jump...
Keith. Last Night. Dish Network. Awesomeness.
During the last half of the show while I’m skipping through the commercials I catch a brand new Obama health care ad. I hadn’t seen it before, so I watch it and this little blue box pops up that entices me to learn more about Obama’s heathcare plan.
I’ve seen these boxes before. CNN uses them to push their interactive Dish channel of pure suckiness. Shell uses them to link to a five minute quasi-romance pseudo-movie about how great they are for finding new and exciting ways to rape the Earth of its natural resources. But an Obama ad? I had to see this for myself.
Click!
"Honey, come quick! I think Obama bought a Dish Network Channel! What’s that? No, I am completely serious about this. Yeah, I don’t know about that either."
Yes, Obama bought a Dish Network channel. 74-00. Also 5890 if you've got the HD box.
Regardless of the intent, I really feel that Obama is jumping the shark on this one. Mostly because I think it’s unnecessary and possibly dangerous at this point in the game.
But I watched for about fifteen minutes last night because they’re running the 10 minute Obama biography that ran before his acceptance speech at the DNC followed by two two-minute ads about healthcare and the economy. And then it loops.
Important stuff to be sure but I can’t imagine there are too many people who care about this election who haven’t seen this stuff yet. And nobody, not even the most diehard Obama fan will watch this for more than 15 minutes or so. It’s just an ad, people.
My first question was, "how much does something like this cost?" There isn’t much I could find but what little I could find pointed to several hundreds of thousands of dollars for something like this. Florida, Ohio, Colorado, New Hampshire, Nevada and North Carolina are all within the margin of error and Obama thinks this is the best way to spend his money?
My money?
Yes, he has my money. Maybe he has your money, too. He may not have much of it, and any individual contribution, no matter how big is just a drop in the bucket, but I’ve always kind of felt like an Obama shareholder since I gave to the website. This is not how I want him to spend my money.
Pay some guy to go door-to-door in Broward County. Sign up new legal immigrants after they take their oath. But a dedicated satellite channel?
There are better ways to spend my money.
The race looks good now, but they call it an October surprise for a reason. Anything can and will happen and I don’t want money going to corporate broadcasters when it could be going to recruiting new voters or fighting the smears of the future.