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.

Comments October 30th, 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.

Comments 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

Comments 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:

Comments July 19th, 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.

Comments July 1st, 2008

Richard Clarke on Countdown: McCain Should Fire Charlie Black (Video)

To those who do not know, Charlie Black who is John McCain’s chief advisor had said earlier that a terrorist attack on USA would create a big advantage for McCain. Richard Clarke appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and said that Charlie Black’s comments are “politics of fear” and advised McCain to fire him immediately “Charlie Black ought to be gone tomorrow morning.”

Comments June 24th, 2008

Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Primary Elections in Review Video (AMAZING)

I was trying to find a video that would summarize the primaries, showing the highlights of what happened during the five months. Yesterday I was watching COUNTDOWN and was amazed on how they made a video of just what I was thinking. The way they combined events was clever and funny in sometimes. Watch……

Comments June 11th, 2008

Countdown with Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Bush’s Unforgivable Interview

I don’t know what to say, this is THE BEST special comment I have ever heard from Keith Olbermann, day after day those special comments get bigger and better.

Olbermann denounces President Bush for suggesting that electing a Democrat as president means “another attack on the United States”, he also questioned his claim of giving up golf out of empathy for fallen U.S. soldiers.

For the the full transcript here.

Here is the video (Hosted on IKBIS):

Comments May 16th, 2008

Barack Obama is the Democratic Nominee, Clinton Cancels her TV Appearances, Tim Russert say its all over for Hillary (Video)

Yesterday Barack Obama won big in North Carolina, he smashed clinton by more than 15 points. While in Indiana Clinton was a able to have a modest 2 points win over Obama. So In NC Obama wins 56% to 42% for Hillary and in Indiana Clinton wins 51% to 49% to Obama.

Bottom line Obama has even more delegates now than ever, he needs less than 300 delegates to lock the nomination, she needs to win 80% of the upcoming delegates, which as we know is impossible.

Everybody knows it was all over for Hillary months ago, but the media just wanted to keep the competition alive so they would have something to do. Have panels, interviews, polls, projections and discussion after discussion after discussion.

But I promise all of the media that they will be very busy in the general election, and after November they will go back to cover Paris Hilton and Britney Spears showing their stuff.

“With leads like this now, if you throw in Michigan and Florida, as is, then Obama would still have about 150,000 votes and he would still have 100 delegates, pledged delegate, lead.” – Chuck Todd

Tim Russert delivered the bottom line effectively: “We now know who the democratic nominee is going to be and no one is going to dispute it”

“Some were saying that North Carolina would be a game-changer in this election. But today, what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, DC” – Barack Obama

Here is Barack Obama’s speech after the win in North Carolina:

And you can just feel in his speech that he has fully switched now to the General Election mode, he know that whatever is going to happen he is the nominee and therefor he will start to focus on McCain.

Logically, today we are seeing infront of our eyes, the new President of USA. That is if the dems does not screw it up.

Comments May 7th, 2008