A Capitol Show!

...Should it be taken to a movie, to a Burger King or to a McDonald's for a Big Mac It's too bad the mam event was cancelled before our education was completed I would like to go on record urging that the networks rerun the impeachment show next summer Will this happen...

...The congressmen were the ones who said they had open minds on the subject People at home already knew where they stood None of this would have occurred if the Judiciary Committee had set up its chairs so that the debaters were forced to face each other As it was, wide shots of the group usually revealed a general air of inattention, giving a viewer the impression the members weren't listening to their colleagues That added to the confusion, since some of them kept claiming they needed more evidence Following each impassioned statement...

...by marvin kitman It is now perfectly clear that the only sound objection to televising an impeachment proceeding is that it takes a man away from his work My income as a free lance fell drastically during the House Judiciary Committee hearings—yet another thing to hold against Richard Nixon All the scholarly pieces I had read in opposition to airing, like a column by James Reston m June, now seem to have been simply the print man's normal reaction to the electronic medium As a TV program the impeachment process worked so well the American people may need as much as 10 months to get back their old apathy about politics and surrendering their constitutional rights Although complex, getting rid of a President proved not to be too heavy a subject for the average viewer In fact, by the time the hearings got under way most citizens probably had a better grasp of the process than in any other period of our history, including 1787 I myself learned what impeachment is all about from a halt-hour kiddie show entitled What Impeachment Is All About, which CBS News managed to squeeze between the cereal and snack commercials one Saturday morning in the spring It turned out, too, that congressmen have been unduly modest in keeping themselves off the air all these years Many of us have been going along believing Will Rogers' and H L Mencken's variations on Mark Twain's classic lines "Reader, suppose you were an idiot And suppose you were a member of Congress But I repeat myself " So, seeing and hearing our lawmakers talk for the first time was quite a shock They are really a lot brighter than one imagined Indeed, given the effectiveness of impeachment in educating people about good government, it may be an instrument worth strengthening Along these lines, I've become the first one on my block in New Jersey to form a Committee to Impeach Gerald Ford Not that I feel he's done anything wrong, yet But this strikes me as the best way of keeping a Chief Executive on his toes Meanwhile, the networks might benefit from exhibiting similar tore-sight As favorably impressed as I was with the Judiciary Committee's performance this summer, the show was not perfect I would therefore recommend the kinks be ironed out in the present relatively relaxed period, before serious discussion begins about making this year's pilot a permanent series Mostly, the problems were technical flaws caused by the legislators' unfamiliarity with the medium For example, the cast should be kept down Not since QB VII has a television show had as many characters as the Committee hearings The only way all 38 members could be shown simultaneously was by the long shot, which made them look like statues on Mt Rushmore—as seen from the next state Moreover, audiences have a limited attention span and featuring so many superstars in a single program is very confusing This difficulty could be alleviated by redesigning the set slightly Instead of being seated around curved tables on two tiers, the performers could sit in squares with neon-hght borders When the Congressman from New Jersey, say, is recognized by the chair, the light around his square would flash on and off, immediately drawing the viewer's eye to him Another idea is to keep the house lights off, thus saving taxpayers' funds A single spotlight is enough Besides, one microphone near the center of the room would reduce the cross-talk that was so distracting in the premiere To further focus attention, there should be room on the set for Congressmen's wives or girl friends This is one of the most effective visual aids for involving viewers in civics, as we learned during the Er-vin hearings from Maureen Dean's extensive wardrobe I thought the bomb threat the first night was a bit stagy and too long (Some cynics have claimed the whole thing was cooked up by the media-conscious Nixon Administration to get the impeachment debate off valuable prime time ) The alleged explosive did produce the unsung hero of the sessions, however, the cameraman who stayed to film the bomb squad's search after Chairman Peter Rodmo had ordered the hearing room cleared The plucky guy obviously deserves a TV Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery Surprisingly, the ratings held up during the 60-minute nonevent In this respect it was reminiscent of another incident that didn't happen, at the time of the Nixon China visit One evening the President was supposed to fly to Peking or Hankow or some place like that, and NBC decided to present the departure live But the entourage was late, and for an hour we watched an airplane sit on the Tarmac Then, after the President finally arrived, all he did was wave and mount the status Nonetheless, NBC's ratings did not drop significantly It is probably a comment on television's quality programing that viewers will find both an empty hearing room and a motionless airplane more intriguing than other shows on the air at the same time But, in fairness, I don't want to discount the possibility that the bomb scare's ratings, at least, were due to the large percentage of thrill-seekers who look at TV There was always the chance, when Rodino eventually rapped his gavel, that it would go BOOM' Once the situation returned to normal and the Committee resumed its hearings on impeaching a President of the United States, the proceedings became somewhat stupefying Who knew, for instance, that it would take two days and nights to make general statements (billed as "a debate") before two days and nights of arguments about specificity (also billed as "a debate") The only big question, it often seemed...

...Chairman Rodino should have passed out slips of paper with a few terse questions, true or false, based on the previous speech That kind of checks-and-balances device, plus an occasional surprise quiz, would have assured viewers their representatives were listening But enough of this fault-finding The House Judiciary Committee hearings were the best educational TV show I have ever seen It taught viewers a whole new language, like "entertaining a motion " What is the best way to entertain a motion...

...I don't see why not," said an impeachable source at one network "We rerun everything else...

...was when it would all be ovei At least the TV commentators always appeared to be preoccupied with how many members still remained to speak The next time, the ludiciary Committee might take advantage of modern technology In bakeries they have these little machines that issue numbers to waiting customers The number of each speaker could be flashed in the corner of the screen so everybody would know at a glance where matters stood Actually, for the first two days and nights, the Committee reminded me of an orchestra tuning up Participants cleared their throats, made noises that sounded like the scales, tried out such percussive effects as rattling papers and clinking water-classes The second two days and nights they got down to the business at hand Of course, the vote on Article I, when it came, took only three minutes, roughly the equivalent of one "pause for station identification " A number of the distinguished gentlemen and gentleladies revealed themselves to be born performers The gentlelady from Texas (Barbara Jordan) stole the show, waving the Constitution was a very visual device The gentleman from Missouri (William L Hungate) and from New Jersey (Charles W Sandman Jr ) showed promise as sit-down comics, although I fear I was laughing at Sandman, not with him The gentlemen from Maryland (Lawrence J Hogan), California (Jerome R Waldie and Charles E Wiggins), New York (Charles B Rangel), Virginia (M Caldwell Butler), Ohio (Delbert L Latta), Indiana (David W Dennis), Massachusetts (Robert F Dnnan), and the gentlelady from New York (Elizabeth Holtzman), were equally auspicious in their debuts I hope their options are picked up by the voters for the next impeachment Yet even the superstars were remiss in one way The purpose of the preliminary debate, one gathered, was to enable the 38 members to sway their colleagues with their oratory But they were not talking to each other, which is the basic thing in your classic debate They were talking at the camera, or to the television audience What did we have to do with it...