Watch the US Presidential Elections 2008 in the Middle East (FULL NEWS CHANNELS TV GUIDE)

I wont be exaggerating at all if I say that the whole world will be watching carefully on the 4th of November 2008, wishing their favorite candidate win. The latest international polls have favored Barack Obama, and the USA polls gives him around a 12 to 13 points lead. But the race is not over, many factors play part here, McCain was down before and ended up winning the republican party nomination, then there is the Bradley Effect.

The Bradley Effect is where a white voter would say in polls he would vote to the African-American candidate but when voting in the voting booth he will end up voting for the other WHITE candidate, so basically racists being shy of their racism and lying to the pollsters. This happened in 1982 while electing California’s governor,  Tom Bradley lost the elections although he was ahead in some polls. I do not believe that the Bradley effect happened or will happen to Obama, we already saw in the primaries how he hold close to the polls even in some places thought to be heavily racist, areas that has a very bad reputation with race discrimination.

So where will those who live in the Middle East watch the elections? Well, there is the free-to-air channels and the Subscription (PAY TV) channels.

Lets start with the PAY TV Channels:
ORBIT: The best network to watch all the action, all year long ORBIT is actually the best place to watch the American politics on their channel “ORBIT NEWS”, shows from MSNBC, NBC, ABC, PBS and BBC. In the last week of the elections since the 27 of October 2008 Orbit launched another news channel “ORBIT NEWS 2″. “ORBIT NEWS 3″ will be launched on the election day.

It has been announced that “ORBIT NEWS 1″ will feature:

• Brian Williams from NBC Nightly News
• Charles Gibson from ABC’s World News
• Jim Lehrer from News Hour on PBS
• Tom Brokaw from NBC’s Meet the Press

While “ORBIT NEWS 2″ will feature famous political commentators from MSNBC:

• Keith Olbermann (Countdown)
• Rachel Maddow (The Rachel Maddow Show)
• Chris Mathews (Hardball)
• David Gregory (Race to the White House)

ORBIT NEWS 3 will starts on the Elections day and it will air a live feed from ABC channel. It will precisely launch at 1:00 AM KSA time.

ART [Firstnet - Pehla]: Not a great choice, as ART only has FOX NEWS and SKY NEWS. FOX NEWS has the worst reputation as the most biased name in news, although ironically their slogan is “Fair & Balanced”. SKY NEWS is not bad but I doubt their coverage would be as good as CNN and MSNBC.

Showtime Arabia: Showtime is by far the worst choice, as they only provide only SKY NEWS, I am not sure though if Bloomberg & CNBC would show any coverage of the elections, if they do then you might follow it on those to FINANCIAL channels.

FREE-TO-AIR Channels:
CNN: The best source in my opinion, great panel of analysts and they have the resources to produce an astonishing full day coverage of the elections. Were very good in covering the primaries.

MBC4: If they do stick with the CBS schedule they will be one of the best channels to watch too, CBS coverage will be interesting to watch, that is if MBC4 cancels their regular schedule and stick with CBS as they have the rights to CBS News.

Aljazeera English: Really Really unbiased, am not being sarcastic this is for real, they are unbiased so much that I get bored watching it, they even cover the other candidates such as Ralph Nader and Bob Barr !! While the American mainstream media shoved them aside.

Other choices in English language: BBC World News, EuroNews, France 24, DW-TV, Russia Today, Press TV, NDTV Arabia

Other choices in Arabic language: Aljazeera Arabic, Al Arabiya, BBC Arabic, Future News, Al Aan TV, Al Ekhbariya, France 24, Rusiya Al-Yaum (Russia Today), Al Hiwar TV, Alhurra (The Free One), Nile News, NBN, ANN, CNBC Arabia (NOT SURE)

WATCH ONLINE:
It is expected that either all or some of the following channels will be streaming their election day coverage for free online: CNN, MSNBC, FOX NEWS, ABC, and CBS.

You can also watch The following channels in a very good quality via Livestation: Aljazeera English, BBC World News, BBC Arabic, Bloomberg, C-Span, DW-TV, EuroNews, France 24, ITN, Russia Today (English), Rusiya Al-Yaum (Russia Today), BBC World Service (Radio), DW-Radio.

Livestation also includes many user added channels, you can simply either search by name or check the channel list available.

Bottom Line: 
We in the Middle East can’t vote, and the majority do not believe that the election is clean, seriously we all are set in thinking the US Elections is rigged, just like 2000. We do not believe that it is fair, especially that there is no equal coverage to other parties other than Democratic party and the Republican part. Most of us do not give a crap and most of us think it is just BS. But I am sure that most of people in the middle east, Arabs, Asians, Europeans, South American, Muslim and Christians will watch.

Some have watched the American elections since last year as if they are watching a reality TV show, a bit longer than American Idol I guess, and some watched it seriously following each and every article written about it. Some believe that it effects all of the world and some believe it will only affect Americans. I believe the whole world have hated the past 8 years, they hated Bush’s foreign policy and domestic policy, in the end all will watch and will wait to know who is the next president for USA hoping change come to Washington and we start seeing some difference in the way things work. Some might laugh and call it naivete, and some will call it hope.

4 comments October 30th, 2008

Tina Fey As Sarah Palin On Saturday Night Live [NBC] (VIDEO)

In my opinion Tina Fey amazingly played the role of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the accent, the voice and the style. I can bet that during the first few words no one could differentiate between them. Amy Poehler as usual played Hillary Clinton. The sketch was really funny, something I do not usually say about  SNL sketches. This was the opening sketch of the premiere of SNL’s new season.

1 comment September 15th, 2008

Barack Obama Chooses Joe Biden as Vice President

Expect at least couple of more weeks of slicing and dicing Joe Biden by the media. What’s really funny is they talk about basic basic known facts, so what are they trying to say? all what they are saying Obama already knows and have put in consideration, its good to state the facts for people who do not know, but acting as if Obama’s campaign did not know those facts already and acting as if its NEW that’s what I call MEDIA BS.

1 comment August 23rd, 2008

Barack Obama Informs Tim Kaine and Evans Bayh They Are Not VP Pick

Just minutes ago MSNBC broke the news that sources told NBC that Barack Obama informed Kaine and Bayh they were not selected for VP. If it is Biden its a good choice, as I said before, I will really be SHOCKED if it was Hillary Clinton. I do not know much about Tim Kaine, but I think Biden is a better choice than Bayh, Evans Bayh would have been a bad bad choice. But who knows Obama could shock us all and choose the newly mentioned shortlist finalist Chet Edwards, the secrecy is amazing, only recently the media uncovered his name.

1 comment August 23rd, 2008

Olbermann’s Special Comment on McCain’s Criticism of NBC Election Coverage and Obama (Video)

As usual an amazing Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on John McCain’s criticism of the NBC elections coverage and Barack Obama. Keith amazingly gives it to McCain, its worth watching each and every second of this Special Comment. Olbermann always says what is on my mind that’s why am so addicted to watching Countdown.

Keith Olbermann explained this Special Comment in a post on the Daily Kos.

Add comment August 20th, 2008

Mccain: Given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border?!?!? (VIDEO)

All eyes are on Obama in Iraq carefully waiting for a mistake or a gaffe expecting that he might be as ignorant as Mccain, now we all know that people can make mistakes, when they are tired from “campaignin” but when it becomes a series of mistakes then we can easily say that this is a REAL problem IN the candidate, I wont have to remind you of the many many gaffes by Mccain one of those ones that really made me laugh is the Sunna Shia error while he was in Iraq and he was corrected by Liebermann.

Now I can hear some of you shouting towards the screen saying that also Obama had gaffes while in the primaries, such as 57 states bit, well look at the percentage between those two guys and DECIDE.

As I said while all the eyes are on Obama, the first foreign policy gaffe was OWNED by Mr. John Mccain.

But is this being covered by the mainstream media, really doubt any of them shed any light on this issue. The media are so hooked on Obama, what he says what he does where he goes, is he moving to the center, who will be his vice president, is he this is he that and during allllll this Mccain is having a free ride. The only shows that I guess will show this clip is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Both cable shows

Add comment July 22nd, 2008

Breaking: Phil Gramm Leaves Mccain Campaign

The star of “Nation of Whiners” Phil Gramm who is a former U.S Senator and Lawmaker  from Texas who is also a past presidential candidate have stepped down from his role as a co-chairman for Mccain’s Campaign. This is after his controversial comments on the economy and calling USA a “Nation of Whiners”.

Here is the clip of Phil Gramm’s “Nation of Whiners”:

Here is how the story broke on Countdown, actually it was 2 minutes before the start of Countdown on AP:

Add comment July 19th, 2008

Countdown - McBush McSame, See How Mccain supports Bush on Iraq Since 2003

I was watching Countdown, and Rachel Maddow is doing a great job while Keith Olbermann is on vacation, anyway, the segment am talking about here is when Rachel showed clips that goes back to 2003 showing how Mccain was always a big supporter of Bush on the Iraq war and not what he claims now that he did disagree with him before. Why do these politicians lie like that don’t they know that there is Internet and people can easily find out the truth? Or are they still thinking that this thing called Internet is a new invention and not many people have access?!

Watch:

2 comments July 16th, 2008

Countdown with Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Obama’s FISA opportunity

Olbermann: Sen. Barack Obama is going to suffer political attacks no matter how he votes on the FISA bill but he can still stand on principle and score a political win by promising to take advantage of a loophole in the bill.

Read the FULL transcript here.

Add comment July 1st, 2008

Barack Obama Launches website to FIGHT the SMEARS from the Right Wing

I do not know why is this site launching now, it should have been launched since January this year, but it seems they wanted it to be focused on smears coming from the republicans.

Obama and his wife have been heavily attacked from all sides, and most attacks are backed with lies lies lies. I am not saying that Barack Obama is perfect, nobody is perfect but at least when you want to attack your opponent try to back it with some facts.

Add comment June 14th, 2008