THE DEFENSIVE PRESS
GELERNTER, DAVID
THE DEFENSIVE PRESS DAVID GELERNTER ALTHOUGH IT'S DEPRESSING AND ALARMING that the public thinks so badly of Republicans and well of the president, a questionable assumption underlies many of our...
...THE DEFENSIVE PRESS DAVID GELERNTER ALTHOUGH IT'S DEPRESSING AND ALARMING that the public thinks so badly of Republicans and well of the president, a questionable assumption underlies many of our darker analyses...
...Americans know what the press tells them...
...We all saw him do it—saw him lie and finagle and cheat and bamboozle shamelessly...
...They never want to hear the word "impeachment" again...
...The impeachment drive has been reported almost everywhere with grim disgust, and it's no shock that the public thinks about it with grim disgust—to the extent it thinks about it at all...
...House Republicans have said similar things already, but you don't penetrate press lines by making fine speeches and answering reporters' questions...
...Rule of law" was the wrong way to frame this case...
...Occasional excerpts turned up, scattered over a news story...
...This president The Republicans' message ought to have been framed in terms of honor and duty...
...David Gelernter is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...The American press constitutes the world's most powerful defensive line...
...I wish they would do it just one more time...
...We did it and lost, but we had to try, and we hope you're with us...
...Like teenage hoods is how they have been made to feel...
...The Times did report that Republican summations showed "a certain fatalistic self-pity...
...I wouldn't bet on it...
...We're all tempted to look away from this ugly scene and forget about it, mind our own businesses, let the honor of the United States take care of itself...
...The remarkable accomplishment of Gingrich's Contract With America wasn't (in retrospect) the agenda it presented, or even the fact of an agenda...
...But surely the public must grasp the basics of House Republican thinking, given all those TV hours and newspaper columns devoted to impeachment...
...they have gone beyond the call of duty already, and they're tired...
...nowadays (unfortunately) that phrase suggests rich arrogant lawyers, "activist" judges, martinet bureaucrats...
...They referred to it con- stantly and published it in print ads all over the country...
...The press laughed it off but couldn't stop it from getting through...
...The battle-weary House Republicans won't do this, and I don't blame them...
...But they've surprised us before...
...it's always been this way...
...pridefully...
...The message ought to have been phrased in terms of honor and duty...
...Henry Hyde delivered an eloquent summation to the Senate...
...House Republicans have never explained themselves directly to the people...
...Leading House Republicans agreed on a clear statement with a snappy title...
...Eventually (in a general sort of way) it sank in, and Republicans won a big election victory...
...Their plans are understandable but sad...
...To reach the public you need a concerted strategy—for example (as in the case of the Contract), you hammer out a text, give it a title, and repeat it relentlessly, circling back to it again and again...
...what has changed is that the press is more powerful, patrician, and unanimous than ever before...
...the New York Times didn't bother to print it...
...impeachment might have allowed them to set up a clear moral distinction between their worldview and the Democrats', without spending or taxes or race or education or anything else to complicate the issue...
...The Contract was a great achievement because it was an armored car that proved capable of delivering a Republican message through hostile lines to the public at large...
...With the trial over, Republicans are preparing to scatter like teenage hoods on the arrival of the cops...
...attacked the honor of the United States as we all, each one of us, sat by our windows and watched...
...operating from strongly fortified positions at the center of American life, journalists capture and rewrite every attempted communiqué from politicians to the people...
...But we had a duty to speak up and take the bully on...
Vol. 4 • February 1999 • No. 22
