[IWE] US daytime Tee Vee

[Ashton Brown]

For those of us who never watch it, this swift recap might interest a 
few. (I don't mind spending 10 minutes on the genre, say annually.)
You could, for instance wonder what effect, if any, its machinations 
might have on the election spectacle (?)

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/10/09/daytime_politics/?source=newsletter

Ex:

Consider John McCain’s much-discussed Sept. 12 appearance on the 
program, which began as he settled comfortably and confidently into the 
couch. By the time the interview ended, he had conceded that he did not 
want to reenslave black people and weathered sharp questions about how 
many earmarks Sarah Palin had put in for as Alaska governor. As his 
wife, Cindy, later complained to a rally, the daytime hostesses with the 
mostest had “picked our bones clean.” Indeed, it was the finest and most 
direct questioning John McCain has received during his campaign, or on 
the issues, from anyone in the mainstream media.

The conversation with McCain was powerful enough to prompt former 
President Bill Clinton to get himself booked on the show. And while the 
women treated him with a bit more reverence, they did stick him with 
some honkingly direct questions — about whether he or his wife had 
wanted Hillary to be Obama’s running mate, about what Clinton thought of 
Palin — that were controversial enough for Clinton to make news by 
answering them (with his current tone-deaf ambivalence about the election).

[. . .]