Why major US TV networks didn’t show Obama’s immigration address

On Thursday evening, President Obama took to the airwaves to present his plan for immigration reform to the American people. Unfortunately, many of the American people were not able to find him.

At 8pm, instead of seeing the president outlining his long-awaited overhaul of one of the country’s most hotly debated issues, ABC viewers were treated to an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Those tuning in to CBS were presented with an episode of The Big Bang Theory; Fox network viewers saw Bones; and viewers tuning to NBC were be able to enjoy The Biggest Loser: Glory Days.

We all knew it would happen, didn’t we. Obama did, for sure.

Thursdays are big nights for the networks, and Grey’s Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, Bones and even The Biggest Loser are ratings heavyweights. A speech by the president is bad for ratings – and anything bad for ratings is loathed by advertisers.

 Alternatives to the speech

The White House can make a formal request to networks for airtime. Such requests are pretty much always granted. But as CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on Wednesday, after the administration put out feelers to the networks and determined that they were reluctant to hand over such airtime, it did not make a formal request.

The Spanish-language network Univision carried the address – in fact, it interrupted its coverage of the Latin Grammys, a huge ratings night, for the president. Univision confirmed to the Guardian that unlike ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox, it had received an official request from the White House to carry Obama’s speech.

Just to focus more finely in on this development for a moment…the “networks” essentially blacked out the President of the United States making a speech regarding the continuation of the one thing that has separated this country from all other countries throughout the history of human civilization, an immigration policy that has provided it with an influx of the best and brightest…although not necessarily the richest…people of every country in the world. Why is America “exceptional?” It is exceptional for this reason and this reason alone. It is the most successful country in the history of the world in terms of assimilating different cultures into a mainstream consensus. That cobbled-together culture built this country from the ground up over several centuries.

Was it a perfect effort?

No.

Of course not.

Murder and mayhem of all kinds accompanied the effort.

But it worked, and apparently Obama…himself a product of that system, a mixed-race American…sees the value of continuing that system into this century. The opposition…also apparently, because there are always levels behind levels behind other levels in a political dispute of this sort…does not want to do that.

Now that Obama is officially the lamest of ducks, he can do and say what he pleases.

Or alternatively…now that he is the lamest of ducks, he can continue the planned dismantling…non-personing, you might say… of the American left.

I do not know for sure which option is closer to the truth. Maybe both. He’s a complicated man. All I can say is this. The more South/Caribbean/Central Americans, the better. I have lived in the neigborhoods and I have lived in the culture as a musician. It is a labor of joy, this culture, and it works.

I hope…for perhaps the first time…Obama is taking off his neolib mask and exposing the true heart that he has hidden behind that mask in a quest for power.

We shall see, soon enough.

Won’t we.

Let us pray.

Elsewhere on the web it is suggested that this move is a gamble to save the coalition that elected him in the first place, to save the Democratic Party itself from total destruction.

Let us pray harder.

Pray for a true multicultural party to arise.

Let us pray.

AG