THE COMMA WAR OF 1996
Carlson, Tucker
The Comma War of 1996 by Tucker Carlson San Diego MIDWAY THROUGH THE OPENING DAY of the Republican party’s platform committee meetings, Gary Bauer and Ann Stone met in the hallway to talk, and...
...In one section of the draft, the plank attacked President Clinton for doing nothing to stop the “persecution of Christians and animists” in Sudan...
...In 1984, one of the most heated debates concerned the placement of a single comma in the tax-reform plank...
...Ann Stone was a particular favorite, not least because her pro-choice views made her politically palatable to many journalists...
...Meanwhile, the congressmen, convention staff, and Dole advisers who oversee the process did their best to keep the delegates—mostly local Republican leaders from the 50 states—in line and moving forward...
...When a delegate protested that he had never heard of an animist, the wording was changed to “and others...
...The debate raged...
...As the two spoke in intense but earnest tones— “Things have gotten so nasty,” lamented Stone—a photographer snapped a series of pictures...
...There are few events less suited to news coverage of any kind than a platform committee meeting...
...THERE ARE FEW EVENTS LESS SUITED TO NEWS COVERAGE OF ANY KIND THAN A PLATFORM COMMITTEE MEETING...
...The real work of the committee amounts to an exercise in group editing, in which 100-odd delegates labor, over a number of days, to refine and perfect the draft of a platform whose essential points have been agreed upon long in advance...
...Alterations like these may seem niggling (though Dole’s foreign-policy staff didn’t think so), but the delegates weighed them with all the gravity of a jury considering a capital murder case...
...The Comma War of 1996 by Tucker Carlson San Diego MIDWAY THROUGH THE OPENING DAY of the Republican party’s platform committee meetings, Gary Bauer and Ann Stone met in the hallway to talk, and the encounter between the Christian conservative and the pro-choice activist drew a crowd of reporters...
...At another point, a delegate moved to strike the word “supranational,” claiming ignorance of its definition, and replace it with “international,” a more easily understood, if very different, term...
...As America watches this debate this evening,” began one delegate typically, unaware that his national audience consisted of perhaps a few hundred C-SPAN viewers...
...This year’s platform contains comparatively few specialinterestdriven pledges to help specific American industries...
...None of the reporters had a notebook or tape recorder in hand...
...We didn’t stand for it in Nuremberg, we shouldn’t stand for it now,” he explained heatedly...
...Sure thing, said Stone and Bauer, who proceeded to walk off in different directions without saying goodbye to each other...
...Often this meant squelching ideas that might play well at home but wouldn’t pass national scrutiny, such as a plan offered by a New York delegate to give suspected terrorists abbreviated trials in military courts...
...Still, it’s hard to blame reporters for blowing it out of proportion...
...A delegate from Minnesota explained that in his hometown, “cops” is considered derogatory...
...Propelled onto front pages around the country by reporters who must have known better, the fight over abortion that took place in the platform committee hearings would not, in all likelihood, turn out to be very significant...
...There wasn’t anything else to write about...
...It was, in other words, little different from last week’s controversy over the GOP’s abortion plank itself...
...Amendments were offered to add or delete modifiers, capitalize letters, finesse grammar...
...This thing will have dust all over it in four days,” predicted one observer...
...Staffers present during the editing of the platform’s foreign-policy planks were particularly frustrated by what they saw as ham-fisted meddling with their carefully crafted positions...
...After a couple of hours of such proceedings, it was no surprise when reporters began to seek out more colorful people to talk to, and that meant abortion partisans...
...A break in the hearings on the second day found Stone relaxing on a couch in the lobby, four female reporters seated Indianstyle on the floor at her feet...
...For the moment at least, they weren’t reporting, but listening, absorbing...
...Moral: The price of good government may be boredom...
...Twelve years later, the process has become, if anything, less scintillating...
...The reason: Many corporations figured it wasn’t worth paying lobbyists to get the language inserted, since the platform isn’t interesting enough to influence anyone in Congress...
...Thanks,” said the photographer...
...THE REAL WORK AMOUNTS TO AN EXERCISE IN GROUP EDITING...
...In the subcommittee considering the plank on crime, an argument broke out over replacing the word “cops” with “law enforcement officials...
...What had appeared to be an important t?te-?-t?te was in fact merely a photo-op, a scripted news event arranged for the convenience of professional journalists on deadline...
...If journalists didn’t seem particularly interested in the meat of the platform, neither did lobbyists...
...Almost instantly the conversation ended...
Vol. 1 • August 1996 • No. 47
