Boom

I've got a new piece, "Reader, my head exploded," at The Guardian's Comment is free America, in my role as telly analyst (telev-analyst?), covering the TV coverage:

Because I am demented, my favorite moment of the whole night was this 14 seconds, during which Chris Matthews drifted off in the middle of babbling, makes a stinkface, and begins muttering incoherently to himself (or, perhaps, a producer's voice in his ear), making himself yet further indistinguishable from a drunken derelict.

Over at CNN, there was plenty of excitement early in the evening as we were given an insider's view of the wild and crazy world of political news while CNN correspondents feverishly checked their email on-camera for news of John McCain's veep pick. Spectacular. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times – nothing makes for awesome television like watching a bunch of journo-nerds reading junk off their Blackberrys.

The highlight of the evening over at party central, however, was Wolf Blitzer's sudden pronouncement, "I want to thank the band for the great job they've done here," eliciting from John King an incredulous, "You want to thank the band?"

I'm not sure what's happening with our trusty old talking heads in Denver. They seem to be stupefying even themselves with their massive emanations of bullshit.

Read the whole thing here. Many thanks to Petulant for providing the video of Matthews. For more fun, check out this video of Matthews barking at his producer that he'll "wrap in a second; I'll wrap in a second!" and then getting totally belligerent with Keith Olbermann while he's trying to interview Steny Hoyer.