I Can't Believe I Watched the Whole Thing

ACCORDING TO a monograph I read a while back, called "The Rise and Fall of the Televised Political Convention," television networks used to cover political conventions for 10 hours a day, sometimes more. Then they gave up, and you can't really blame them. The all-news cable channels, it was assumed, would pick up the slack, broadcasting the conventions gavel to gavel; after all, what else was there for them to do? That didn't work out either. The all-news cable channels have pretty much abandoned the idea of broadcasting news, preferring instead to broadcast their own commentators as they interview one another about what they think about the news, and this tendency intensifies, paradoxically enough, during those lively periods when there's presumably a lot of news to broadcast, as with the conventions.

And so the task of broadcasting political conventions from the first blow of the gavel to the last has fallen to C-SPAN, which alone treats them as events worthy of a citizen's attention. You can debate the premise but you can't argue with the result. The result is full of wonders. Last month I tried watching the Democratic convention on C-SPAN, off and on, and it offered a much more rewarding experience than watching the all-news cable channels. You never have to look at Chris Matthews, for one thing, or Keith Olbermann, for that matter, or Bill O'Reilly, come to think of it, or Sean Hannity, or Paul Begala . . . honest, I could go on and on. I did miss that nice Alan Colmes, though.

I stuck to C-SPAN last week, starting Monday night, and unlike those unlucky people who tuned in to FNC or CNN or MSNBC in hopes of watching the convention, I actually got to watch the convention.

MONDAY 7:30: Except I was late. By the time I settled before the TV with the instruments of my craft--notebook, two pens (one red, one blue), malt liquor--the evening session was well underway, and here I am watching my first speech, given by Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House and the second- or third-most powerful man in government. He displays the same personal magnetism that has made his name familiar to fully 13 percent of the American people. He says he wants to describe "the right vision for America. It is the Lincoln vision, it is the Reagan vision, and it is the American vision," but--wouldn't you know it--he's squinting. Hastert is a very big Speaker, and though I don't know him personally this is obviously a fellow who is refusing to level with himself when he stands at the rack at Today's Man. From the beltline upwards it looks as though he's stuffed his coat with Beanie Babies. He looks like a shoplifter at a novelty shop.

Suddenly he stops speaking and turns from the podium. The speech is over. No one seems to notice.

Then, for the longest time, nothing happens. If you've ever attended a pro basketball game you'll know the feeling: Play suddenly stops, though there's no penalty or injury on the court, and everybody just stands around for two or three minutes. It's a "broadcast time out," required not by the pace or rules of the game but by the demands of commercial TV. Then, just as mysteriously, the game resumes.

Something similar happens several times an hour during the C-SPAN coverage. I don't know why. Commentators always say conventions are "tightly scripted," but on C-SPAN they seem pretty baggily scripted. When the networks tune in, the schedules tighten up, I'm sure. Otherwise, in the early hours of the evening, there are endless longueurs. People mill about or doze in their seats. A band opposite the stage plays disco music, inexplicably and not well. The C-SPAN cameras scan the delegates, pausing on those unfortunate Republicans who have chosen to do the Hustle. I doodle in my notebook.

I'm glad not to be watching the cable channels during such doldrums. Otherwise I would have to listen to commentary. Today the commentators are chewing over the most recent curious remark from President Bush, uncorked just this morning. The war against terror, he told the Today show, is not something we can "win." Good thing they don't let the president write his own speeches: "We will not tire, we will not waver, we will not falter, and we will not win!"

7:45: Dick Cheney arrives to take his seat in Madison Square Garden, wife and extremely cute grandchildren in tow. As he moves down the aisles toward his box, men extend their arms toward him and lower their heads and round their shoulders, as they always will when placed in the presence of the Alpha male. And Cheney's just the Beta male. When Bush shows up Thursday night these guys may melt into the floor.