Most people think C-SPAN is boring, but most people are wrong. C-SPAN is only boring in long stretches that are occasionally interrupted by uncompromising realness that would put any reality show to shame.
Take, for example, what happened on Tuesday morning, when brothers Brad and Dallas Woodhouse went on C-SPAN to discusses bridging the partisan divide in American politics.
If anyone would know about the chasm between left and right in the United States, it would be the Woodhouse boys. Liberal Brad is the former communications director for the Democratic National Committee, while conservative Dallas used to run the North Carolina chapter of the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity.
The brothers were using the segment on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to promote a documentary about their family called Woodhouse Divided. During the call-in segment, however, things went very, very wrong.
The show got a call from a North Carolina woman named Joy. As soon as Joy began speaking, Dallas—clearly not the communications director in the family—uttered the four little words that no one ever wants to hear slip out of their mouth on live television.
“Oh God,” he said, “it’s Mom.”
Sure enough, their mother had called in to say that she hoped her boys finished all their public-policy bickering on C-SPAN so they wouldn’t ruin another perfectly good Christmas dinner arguing about Obamacare death panels.
“I would really like a peaceful Christmas,” Mrs. Woodhouse told her sons.
Washington Journal host Steven Scully insisted that the call wasn’t planned, but he seized the moment nonetheless.
“Since you did call in,” Scully said, “What has it been like to raise these two boys?”
“It hasn’t been easy,” replied Mrs. Woodhouse, who described herself as a registered Democrat who sometimes splits her tickets on Election Day. “I know they’re both very passionate about what they believe in and I love that about them, but I just hope they get it all out of their systems on your program.”
What’s the moral of this story? No matter how old you get, your mom is always going to punish you for fighting with your brother.
Check out the trailer for Woodhouse Divided:
Screengrab via C-SPAN
