[Note: as part of Independent Sources desire to give its readers maximum value, we have put bonus material at the end of this posting including the alternate headlines generated for this piece.]

Kerry nearly stops OLN’s TdF coverage with Filibuster-like Answer to Simple Question

John Kerry dropped in on the OLN coverage of Stage 20 of the Tour de France. We’re not sure if he was stumping in Saint-Etienne but he quickly showed what a lifetime in politics does to one’s ability to give simple answers.

Senator Kerry was asked two brief questions about Lance Armstrong and Lance’s legacy. Both could have easily been answered with quick sound bites—which no doubt was what the OLN producers expected. Instead  Kerry looked as though he was in training for a judicial nominee filibuster. His responses dragged on for well over 2 minutes and given Kerry’s plodding, pause-filled, mind numbing delivery, it seemed even longer. Kerry’s soliloquy went so long in fact that OLN was forced to reduce him to a small box in the corner of the screen so that viewers wouldn’t miss even more of the race while he chatted away. By the way, if a two minute interrupted stream of consciousness doesn’t sound long to you, just try talking non-stop for that long without it seeming like an eternity for both you and your audience.

It wasn’t just the length of Kerry’s answers that was painful. It was also the content. Out of the blue, Kerry announced that while watching last year’s Tour (on tapes supplied to him by his staff) he skipped all the commercials. In case you didn’t know, OLN is an ad-sponsored network and they don’t particularly need people on air discussing their ad-skipping practices.

Kerry ended his talk joking that he had recently learned to talk like OLN commentator Bob Roll. If true, this would be a dramatic improvement and I look forward to Kerry interjecting Rollisms (e.g., “pedaling pilgrims of pain”) on the Senate floor.

OLN rethought the wisdom of putting Kerry on TV and appeared to have cut him entirely from later re-broadcasts of the stage.

Bonus Material:

Alternative headlines to this post:

• John Kerry Reminds Americans Why They Don’t Like Him
• Kerry’s Speech is able to Make 2000 Mile Race Seem Brief in Comparison
• Ullrich Says He’d Rather Have Lance Back Next Year Than Kerry
• Bush’s Popularity in France Soars as Kerry’s Visit Continues
• For God’s sake! Shut up!
• Where is Al Sharpton When You Need Him?
• Kerry Speaks, Lance Becomes a Republican

Additional reading: John Kerry Intellectual? Tour de France

For serious TdF Coverage: TdFblog

Technorati: tour de france John kerry OLN

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 24th, 2005 at 5:11 pm by Insider and is filed under Cycling, Election 2008 Live Team Coverage!, Weekend Edition / Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.