Although I consider reading much of the mainstream media oulets to be "getting the other side" of political stories, I decided I would try to get an even deeper understanding by reading some left-wing blogs, like Daily Kos.

The first post I arrived at suggests that the Republicans put pressure on someone to get ABC to broadcast a halftime report from the convention during Monday Night Football, anchored by Peter Jennings.

The complaint is then made that, "ABC didn't offer any special "live convention reports" during the Obama speech at the Democratic convention."

I'm not sure if this was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek as I don't know enough about the blog to know it's tone. Also, like someone stumbling across LGF for the first time, I am trying to separate the owner from the comment section where the real conspiracy theorists live.

Here are several reasons why this isn't just wrong, it's ridiculous.

First of all, no one outside of Illinois had ever heard of Obama until his speech at the Democratic convention and I imagine that most Americans polled today still would not know who he is (although he gave an excellent speech). The article quoted by Kos even says straight out that the schedule was not announced for non-principals. Meanwhile, the scheduled speaker for around halftime for the Republicans are John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, both who are well-known nationally. I would also find it hard to imagine that political junkies of any stripe will not be interested in Rudy's 9/11 related comments.

Secondly, pre-season Monday Night Football is not the Super Bowl. If the Republicans were looking for ratings, they are going to the wrong place. The competition that night includes Everybody Loves Raymond and CSI:Miami on CBS which are both Top 10 shows.

Thirdly, 70 percent of the MNF audience is male, where Bush already has a strong lead.

Fourthly, the game is between Tennessee and Dallas, so most of the interest will be in Texas and the South where, again, Bush already has a strong lead.

Fifthly (is that a word?), if I wanted to pick a network or cable anchorman to be the one guy to give a special report from my convention, Peter Jennings would not be him.

I was hoping to get some political thought from Daily Kos, but instead I got conspiracy theory. Better luck next time.