November 04, 2008

Obama wins!

December 7, 1941:  Pearl Harbor
November 22, 1963:  Kennedy assassination
July 20, 1969:  First man on the moon
January 28, 1986:  Challenger disaster
September 11, 2001:  Twin Towers collapse

Remember where you were today when you heard the news. You'll be telling your children and grandchildren about it someday.

Finally, our long national nightmare is over.

3 comments:

dmarks said...

"Remember where you were today when you heard the news. You'll be telling your children and grandchildren about it someday."

The news didn't come that way. Very slowly, across all the cable channels, they realized that Obama had won. No suddenness to the news. Unlike with the other events.

I tried all the channels last night, and ended up on Fox. Not because of its bias. But because the coverage was best. Every time I tried MSNBC, ABC, or NBC, it was commercials.

CBS was the worst. For its maps and data, they chose a font where the letters were fuzzy and unreadable (even though they were larger than the letters on Fox) and it looked like something a local station in a market of 12,000 would have done. That, and a lot of interviews in places with bad sound. Really awful. CNN's coverage and presentation of data was as good as Fox's really, but I got tired of looking at Lord Voldemort.

I miss Tim Russert, but I didn't miss his greaseboard.

dmarks said...

Also, 4 of the 5 dates you chose to compare this to were disasters. Are you sure you did not get that list from Rush Limbaugh? :)

Rob said...

I was switching back and forth between CBS, NBC, and ABC. I was pretty much able to avoid commercials.

Pennsylvania gave us the first inkling that Obama was going to win. It was only an hour or so between the time the networks called that state and the time they called the election. That's a mere moment in the grand scheme of things.

The other events I listed didn't happen suddenly either. The moonwalk required a couple of hours of preparation before Armstrong took his first step. About an hour elapsed before officials announced what had happened to the Challenger. And about an hour elapsed before the second WTC tower fell.

Unfortunately, memorable disasters happen more often than memorable non-disasters. But that doesn't change my point. For many people, I bet the election results will be one of the highlights of their lives.