Presswatch/The Sunday Soaps

...All this, on national television...

...Not surprisingly, questions that might broaden the inquiry are seldom, if ever, asked...

...426 and 395 pages...

...Nor was he asked to do so during his earlier appearance on "This Week With David Brinkley...

...but the second, "Can Congress stand up to the special interest groups when it comes to cutting spending programs...

...and Ed Rollins (of the National Republican Congressional Committee), plus the gubernatorial candidates in Florida (Gov...

...Introducing that October 21 show, he mentioned two questions that apparently were to be asked of guest George Mitchell...

...Tkvo weeks later, Sununu, on "This Week," was asked by David Brinkley, "What have you learned from [the budget fiasco...

...TITLES FROM LIBERTY FUND DISCOURSES CONCERNING GOVERNMENT By Algernon Sidney Edited by Thomas G. West "Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government has an important place in the history of English and American republicanism...

...On the four shows I examined, David Broder of the Washington Post made three appearances, while Alan Murray (Wall Street Journal), Robert Novak (Chicago Sun-Times), Elizabeth Drew (New Yorker), Tim Russert (NBC News), and Andrea Mitchell (also of NBC) made one each...

...The Sunday shows clearly could use new formats and new faces...

...Alas for CBS, it was this format that enabled the network to deliver the most witless and indeed biased analysis of the night...

...Meet the Press," the oldest of the programs, is now hosted by Garrick Utley, who is joined by two journalists...

...This obviously wasn't enough to turn the tide in favor of Clayton Williams in the Texas gubernatorial race (won by Democrat Ann Richards...

...was thoroughly discussed...

...For this, you have to tune in "Firing Line," with William F. Buckley, Jr., which remains, after twenty years, the most intellectually satisfying of the talk shows...

...Foreword, biblography, editor's note, index...

...For example, Elizabeth Drew, Tim Russert, and Garrick Utley's discussion of civil rights on October 21 left me feeling that I was eavesdropping on a conversation among Hill staffers in George Mitchell's office...

...Predictably enough, mainstream journalism used lots of air time and column inches to explain how evil Jesse Helms was, and to deplore his ads opposing racial preferences...

...Face the Nation," because it is Lesley Stahl's show, reflects her politics, which are liberal...

...Thus, Sam Donaldson to Sununu (everyone's juicy target): "Now, the talk around town is that you have not served the President well...

...Sununu put his feet up or act in the way that you described...

...For neither Kinsley nor Buchanan has to worry about journalistic objectivity, as they openly work in the opinion side of the media...

...As for "Meet the Press," its offerings were not as balanced...

...he's usually joined by Sam Donaldson and George F. Will, and on occasion by Cokie Roberts...

...Mitchell quickly leaped in: "Can you name one...

...It's enough to make you wonder why he doesn't stay abroad permanently...

...The same point applies to discussions of the Civil Rights Act of 1990, which, after President Bush's veto on grounds that it would encourage racial quotas, became an issue in a number of House and Senate campaigns...

...378 and 377 pages...

...Newt Gingrich...

...Franks, who is thirty-seven, black, and conservative, is the first black Republican elected to the House in five decades—all facts worth chewing on...

...Or consider Lesley Stahl, grilling Darman on October 7: "I want to ask you about this whole issue [a whole issue!] of you and Mr...

...Thus, on October 28 he closed by offering "a little perspective on taxes themselves," telling viewers that taxes in the United States are a "bargain" compared to what they are in other countries, and that people in those other countries like their higher taxes because of what they get in return—health insurance, well-maintained roads and bridges, and other services...

...Face the Nation" is Lesley Stahl's exclusive labor...

...Utley ends "Meet the Press" with a short commentary...

...But it inspired me to join the President in the critic's corner...

...Sununu answered, "Andrea, we all make mistakes," before going on to commit one by confessing, "I've made mistakes...

...such inquiries were all too few during the shows I reviewed...

...The question fairly begging to be asked concerned the principle of fairness guiding Mitchell, and why it should apply at the $200,000 level and not, say, at $100,000 or $500,000...

...This new edition arrivesjust as scholars are rediscovering the real Algernon Sidney...

...If that's what voters told CBS, how come so many states turned out governors who'd raised taxes...

...Another reason for the imbalance is Utley as moderator...

...A week after that, Sununu, back for more meeting the press on NBC, was asked by Andrea Mitchell: "In this fall campaign, did you make any mistakes at all . . . in strategy...

...This mix provided far better analysis than that of CBS and NBC, both of which relied on their anchors and reporters...

...There were also many obvious questions that anyone could have posed, such as what kind of tax rate might the President accept, how many seats will the respective parties win or lose, and so on...

...The Confessional and Gossip questions are evidence of Washington journalism's pronounced interest in who's up and who's down, who's in and who's out...

...Or why did the New Jersey congressional delegation oppose, en masse, the budget-deficit reduction package, which included some new taxes...

...Another kind of inquiry falls into the category of Gossip...

...Her guests included Richard Darman of the Office of Management and Budget, Alan Murray (an interviewee this time), and Kevin Phillips, identified as a "political analyst...

...Vice President Quayle (another busy man...

...A hat trick has sometimes been achieved, and public affairs offices in Washington take great pride when they score a three-in-one...

...The shows conclude with a short segment (as much as ten minutes on "This Week," sometimes just ten seconds on "Face the Nation") in which the journalists opine (i.e., commit the punditry Bush dislikes), the interviewees having departed the scene...

...This is not to say that liberal journalists cannot ask questions with conservative premises...

...The question is," replied the schoolmarm Stahl, "what about your behavior...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1991 33...

...Whoever goes on the network shows—or comes to work in official Washington—had better prepare himself for these...

...Contrary to the intro, this turned out to be a show about the tax half of fiscal policy—another preoccupation of Washington journalism...

...For that matter, why not ask Mitchell: Is it really fair to tax people at different rates, and if so, why...

...On the October 14 program, Ed Rollins, trying to focus on the need to cut spending, said, "Lesley, there is a $300 billion budget...

...Because sharp political difference is built into the program by their very presence, the show tends to achieve political balance...

...DD119 Indianapolis, IN 46250 We pay book rate postage...

...and Rep...

...David Brinkley of ABC is the host...

...In other words, Helms made a racist appeal, and North Carolina obliged in racist fashion to elect him...

...Darman, Gephardt, and Rep...

...Jerry Brown, chairman of the California Democratic party, and Haley Barbour, a Republican National Committeeman from Mississippi...

...You've got to be able to at least freeze it or cut something out of it...

...The three best-known shows are the Sunday offerings---"Meet the Press" (NBC), "Face the Nation" (CBS), and "This Week With David Brinkley" (ABC...

...Foreword, bibliography, editor's note, preface to the 1st edition, index...

...Sununu, Brown, Phillips, and Michael Barone, author of The Almanac of American Politics...

...Many of the questions on the shows I watched were posed sharply, and when answers were imprecise or evasive, the questioners were sometimes persistent...

...I wouldn't tell you, Andrea," he said...

...The popular name that comes to mind is eventually Sam Skinner...

...The ideological imbalance also was apparent during the brief commentary segment at the end of the show...

...The first, "Where do we stand now on raising taxes...

...Those conservatives who opposed quotas could have been asked, "What makes a quota wrong...

...Bob Martinez and Lawton Chiles) and Massachusetts (Silber and Weld...

...Richard Gephardt and Sununu (again), on the elections...

...It has been unobtainable for decades...

...Primarily because of Will's presence, "This Week" retained a reasonably balanced shape, both in the questioning and the commentary...

...Please allow approximately 4 weeks for delivery...

...It presents the events and ideas of the American Revolution (from the outbreak of turbulence in the 1760s to the onset of Washington's administration) and an ardent Federalist defense of the Constitution of 1787...

...Speaking of taxes, David Broder's willingness to contradict his colleague Jack Germond on NBC the morning after the elections is worth noting...

...All orders must be prepaid in U.S...

...he'll probably make another run for office...

...The weakness of "Crossfire" is that, like the Sunday shows, it usually can't take the time to work through an argu32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1991 ment or consider an idea...

...But it is more likely that a conservative journalist will pose questions from the right, and with conviction...

...O ne is what I call the Couch or Confessional question, asked of THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1991 31 someone whom the interrogator evidently thinks should have learned some "personal" lesson...

...Hardcover $35.00 0-86597-088-2 Paperback $12.00 0-86597-089-0 LibertyClassics, 1990 Also Available "Every revolutionary scholar and every serious library can now acquire both of the greatest contemporary histories of the American Revolution...

...Inevitably, the political slant of the respective shows must be addressed...

...Usually it is as banal as a detergent commercial...

...When Sununu ignored the personal thrust of the question by answering, "That Congress does not like summitry," Broder followed up: "Have you learned anything about the way you do your job...

...But was it...

...And those who deplored Jesse Helms's ads against racial preferences in the North Carolina Senate race could have been asked, "What specifically is it about the ad that you object to...

...What happened here," she explained, "was a very strong racial message from Jesse Helms in the closing ten days of the race and it focused on something that we've found previously in Louisiana with the David Duke campaign...

...Finally, the contest of 1990 was supposed to be the North Carolina Senate battle between Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt...

...Darman (again) plus several members of Congress running for office...

...dollars...

...Here I have in mind questions that would go to issues of principle, that would probe an argument or unpack an idea...

...The same news organizations that put so much work into the unsuccessful unmaking of Helms neglected to pay more than token attention to the election of Gary Franks to the House of Representatives, from Connecticut...

...Thus, on October 7, she asked Kevin Phillips how "Reaganomics" can possibly survive "in the body politic out there [her term for the wasteland outside the Beltway...

...Name Address City State/Zip Mail to: LIBERTY FUND, INC...

...Darman: "I didn't see the incident you referred to: I didn't see Mr...

...Byrd, and insulting him . . ." Darman was composed enough to ask: "What's the question...

...In addition to its political reporters, the network had on commentators Will, Barone, and Ben Wattenberg, and also Douglas Wilder, the Virginia governor...

...Only Novak is a political conservative (and of course he helped balance the one show he was on...

...Like Helms, both Franks and Blackwell opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1990...

...O n election night ABC was the hands-down winner for best—i.e., most intelligent—coverage...

...Thus Sununu, on the October 14 "Meet the Press," was asked by David Broder, in regard to the budget negotiations: "What have you learned from this experience...

...George Mitchell, on the budget "crisis...

...was pursued only once, and weakly, regarding cuts in Medicare...

...If there is any more important tract on liberty from this period not readily available in print, I do not know it...

...And I don't have any way to comment on it...

...PRESSWATCH THE SUNDAY SOAPS In Houston the day before the mid- term elections, George Bush lit into the Washington-based "talk shows," pronouncing them "tiring" and accusing the "pundits" who appear on them of negativity...

...This is not to say that she fails to ask some good questions (and indeed she did on the shows I watched...

...Lloyd Bentsen...

...In fact, Russert worked for Hill Democrats before becoming NBC's Washington bureau chief...

...Foreword, bibliography, editor's note, list of abbreviations, index...

...Sometimes, in fact, as on November 4, when Silber and Weld managed to appear on both "Face the Nation" and "This Week With David Brinkley," the same people are on more than one show...

...Broder was absolutely right to insist against Germond that there had been strong anti-tax sentiment across the country...

...Vice President Dan Quayle, on the budget Terry Fostland is resident fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C...

...It is, by the way, characteristic of the Sunday shows that quite often they seek the same people...

...Hardcover $45.00 the set 0-86597-078-5 Paperback $15.00 the set 0-86597-081-5 LibertyClassics, 1990 Please send me: Quantity Title Edition Price Amount Discourses Concerning Hardcover $35.00 Government Paperback $12.00 History of the Hardcover $45.00 American Revolution Paperback $15.00 Ramsay History of the Rise . . . Hardcover $45.00 of the American Paperback $15.00 Revolution Warren Subtotal ^ Enclosed is my check or money order made payable to Liberty Fund, Inc...

...Sununu sidestepped him again...

...The "guests" or interviewees included White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, on the budget negotiations...

...But Richard Gephardt, who kept bringing up the matter of "tax fairness," wasn't asked even once to describe and defend his principles...

...If there's anything that we heard out there at the polls today, it was the sound of Reaganomics crashing all around us," said an apparently hallucinating Ed Bradley...

...Twoweeks later, with Broder and Mitchell at Utley's elbow, "Meet the Press" had another opportunity to ask a Democrat to take the fairness point beyond its bumper-sticker dimension...

...The genius of a show like "Crossfire" is that co-hosts Michael Kinsley and Pat Buchanan can be even more political in their questioning than Stahl or Utley...

...in fact, Broder and Mitchell did ask a few...

...Fortunately for him, Sununu declined the invitation...

...Another young black conservative Republican—Kenneth Blackwell—barely lost in his bid for the House from Ohio...

...Sununu putting his feet up in the face of the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Mr...

...Will, for example, got Gephardt to admit that the increase in Social Security taxes promoted by Democrats in the early 1980s was "the biggest regressive change in the tax code" in that decade...

...On the Sundays I watched the guests were Sen...

...If there's anything left of Reagan's trickle-down theory, Dan, it seems to be anxiety which seems to be trickling down through just about every segment of our society...

...This has really been a heart-breaking race," sobbed NBC's Andrea Mitchell on election night...

...When Gantt lost by the kind of margin Helms's opponents usually lose by, the media's disappointment could not be contained...

...Sununu being threaten-ing to Congress and rude to Congress—stories about Mr...

...One need not agree with the way Helms portrayed the issue of racial preferences—he ran an ad showing white hands crumpling up a letter advising the recipient that he had lost out on a job that had gone to "a minority because of a racial quota"—in order to agree with his anti-quota position...

...All three shows ignored opportunities to ask guests for principled justifications of their positions...

...and that, after the elections, you may be replaced...

...But if there's a reason to call the shows "tiring," it has to do with certain kinds of questions that are by Terry Eastland the Washington journalist's stock in trade...

...agreement and the elections...

...This is another way of saying what the media too often ignore—that voters sometimes have mixed views of those they support...

...To which she replied: "But then you can't raise money for bridges and education and drug programs...

...This Week With David Brinkley" runs for an hour—twice as long as "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation...

...At this point Sununu recognized that he had finally been shoved inside the confessional booth...

...Please send me a copy of your current catalogue...

...Those liberals who said they opposed quotas (that being politically obligatory these days) could have been asked, "Which racial preferences do you endorse, and why...

...Ron Brown (chairman of the Democratic National Committee) and Charles Black (speaking for the Republican National Committee), and John Silber and William Weld, the gubernatorial candidates in Massachusetts...

...After all, everything else on television is reviewed, so why not the talk shows...

...This new edition, attractively presented with helpful annotations, is thus more than usually welcome" —John Morrill, Cambridge University 645 pages...

...Sununu gave a bland answer...

...One reason is the selection of journalists joining Utley...

...Lance Banning, University of Kentucky HISTORY OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND TERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION INTERSPERSED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL, POLITICAL, AND MORAL OBSERVATIONS By Mercy Otis Warren Edited and annotated by Lester H. Cohen In Two Volumes This work (in the first new edition since 1805) is a comprehensive narrative from an Antifederalist perspective of the events of the Revolution...

...But Stahl's politics also came through: she's a believer in higher taxes and bigger government...

...But sometimes Utley hoists an ideological flag...

...These questions narrow the range of inquiry and help account for the tendency of Washington journalism to be petty and intellectually parochial, "tiring," if you will...

...Having worked as a journalist for six years in North Carolina, I am prepared to believe that there were a fair number of voters in the state who wished Helms hadn't pitted whites against minorities in his ad, yet agreed with the substance of his views...

...No question there, but what is a guest supposed to do, add to the "talk about town...

...Drawing perhaps on his experience as a foreign correspondent, Utley expressed admiration for the fiscal policies of France, Germany, Holland, and Sweden...

...Hardcover $45.00 the set 0-86597-066-1 Paperback $15.00 the set 0-86597-069-6 LibertyClassics, 1989 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION By David Ramsay Edited and annotated by Lester H. Cohen In Two Volumes David Ramsay's History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789, during an enthusiastic celebration of nationhood...

...Thus, on the October 21 "Meet the Press," George Mitchell repeatedly sang the Democrats' song of "fairness," as in: "We feel that those who earn over $200,000 should pay a fair share of the deficit reduction burden...

...That would have forced him to justify the progressive character of the income tax code, but on this Utley, Drew, and Russert were mute...

...7440 North Shadeland Avenue, Dept...

...For those who do not watch these shows—which is to say most of the population outside Washington, a point the President would do well to remember—all three are interview programs in which one or more journalists fire questions at someone in the (Washington) "news...

...I examined the programs of October and early November that dealt with domestic politics, and thus the budget business and the elections...

...The result in North Carolina was portrayed by national media as a sad measure of the nation's race relations...