Yes he did, and wasn't the coverage poor.

"Cool," said I.

"Yeah its brilliant," agreed H-S.

I think N was silently holding back the tears.

That was our response when, fueled by american beer, wine and bourbon, we came to the end of a pretty joyous night. I am prepared to admit that I felt some strong manly emotions during both McCain's concession, and Obama's acceptance. Obama is one of the finest orators in politics, possibly the finest. And the finest orator-president since Kennedy. The strong emotions nearly became tears during the cuts to a crying Jesse Jackson.

Mainly though, I am writing to note how utterly poor the BBC coverage was. We had David Dimbleby sat on a table with a bunch of bad tempered, poorly shod, commentators. Who spend most of the time bickering, or in John Bolton's case, providing some comedy gold, for which see below.

We had regular spots in Culpepper, about which we did not care. We had regular spots with Jeremy effing Vine, and his map, which was poor. First of all, Vine is no Snow, Vine could never move with the kind of nine elbowed enthusiasm that a snow can muster. (What he lacked in ability, he made up for in facing away from the camera, and presenting us his back.) It did not help that he had clearly been stranded on a tiny soundstage in London, when all the real newsies were on their American jolly. Secondly the quality of the CGI studio was very poor indeed. Thirdly the content was deeply lacking. All we got was highlights of small counties about which we did not care. We never saw any predictions or projections. We never saw any historical comparisons, and what information Vine did give, he was incapable of putting into context.

David Dimbleby, whilst in many ways excellent, never betrayed any real interest in the historic events surrounding him. Perhaps in protest at the shower of shits on the table around him. (With two exceptions: Simon Schama and some chap with shiny black hair.) His main contribution was to be rude about the coverage.

The organisation of the coverage was very bad, no one seemed capable of finding anyone with anything worth saying, and when there was something to hear, the coverage cut off. The nadir for this was when rather than hear from Jesse Jackson, making a speech to the exultant Democrats in Grant Square; we instead found ourselves listening to the gems of wisdom from... Jeremy Vine. (Who needs history, when you have the graying hair of the back of Jeremy Vine's head.) At every hour a clock would count to the close of a new raft of polls, where without fail a graphic fanfare would herald David Dimbleby authoritatively looking to the camara, over his glasses, and explaining, once again, that he didn't have anything new to tell us.

Best 5 TV Moments

5 David Dimbleby Cuts off the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

"Yeahyeah-mumble"

4 John Bolton vs The BBC.

Bolton chooses not to discuss an interview, but instead berates David Dimbleby personally for the quality of an interview which was "more of an argument", ending with the assertion that the reporter knew nothing about the area and should be sacked. Bringing in the phrase "guests in this country."

David Dimbleby responded by asking if the pertinent facts raised by the reporter were in fact accurate. This apparently was beside the point.

This was the second time he berated a reporter who dare disagree with him.

3 John Bolton vs Simon Schama.

Simon Schama listens politely, before responding that Bolton had undermined his entire argument (a dull one on the cycles of political history), and unpicking it - before concluding that far from the result of natural political cycles Obama's success represents a genuine "tectonic shift". As Bolton looks on in open mouthed, mustache bristling, eye burning rage.

Simon Schama later wiggles in glee as Bolton trips over his words.

2 Gore Vidal.

A bizarre interview, where Vidal addressed short rants, (only loosely related to the questions,) to some point to the far lower right of the camera. The culmination was: "I don't know why you asked me, I know something about the subject usually you ask people who know nothing about the subject..." Note Vidal does not really share any of his bounteous knowledge. He followed this by telling Dimbleby "Its your turn now."

Dimbleby's comment on the weirdness - "Well, that was fun"

1 A Photograph from the White House.

Over what was clearly a stock photo, if not some kind of photoshop job, of George W. Bush gurning into a telephone we had the following sterling commentary:

"There is the president, George Bush congratulating Barack Obama, in the white house." Dimbleby continued by reading some random comments off the screen. before concluding. "That was the President, well..."

"It was a photograph."

----
Afterthoughts

We were not the only ones who found the coverage truely shocking: MediaMonkey, The Guardian; LibDemVoice.

At least Vine never sunk to the level of dancing, or putting on a stetson and talking in an american accent.