UNLEVEL PLAYING FIELD: That creaking you hear is the sound of the press corps bending over backwards for the Bush/Quayle ticket. One example of what seems to be a deliberately unlevel playing field was NBC’s tally of likely electoral votes for Bush and Clinton (10/19):
NBC estimated that Clinton was likely to get at least 247 electoral votes, compared to Bush’s 151. This seems like bad news for Bush, until you note that the count on CBS was 311-14 in favor of Clinton.
The difference is that CBS relied on the latest state-by-state polls, while NBC told Counterspin it was factoring in speculations from the campaigns that the race would tighten. To illustrate how much “benefit of the doubt” NBC was giving Bush: Kansas, where the latest poll (Kansas City Star) showed Clinton with a 7-point lead, was labeled a Bush state; Colorado, where Clinton led in the last poll (Denver Post) by 19 points, was labeled undecided.
Media outlets shouldn’t waste so much time and energy picking the winner of the election now; we’ll all know in two weeks anyway. But if they insist in engaging in such horserace projections, at least they should do so in an evenhanded manner.
BOTTOMED OUT: Another example of the media going out of their way to give the underdog a break was the commentary after the final debate. The standard that Bush was expected to reach was embarrassingly low: “The president really woke up tonight and I think came alive,” PBS’s David Gergen said. “I think at least he will have bottomed out with this, and perhaps he will create some momentum.”
ABC’s extensive post-debate commentary was mostly raves for Bush, mainly on the basis that he was paying attention: “What did impress me was that the president, who did seem detached the other night in Richmond, was much more focused,” said Jeff Greenfield. “I mean, when Bill Clinton said I want to change America, the president came back and said, that’s what worries me.”
Similarly unexceptional feats of rhetoric made an impression on Cokie Roberts: “The president also really did get off some strong points by talking about what it was like when Jimmy Carter was president with a Democratic Congress.” Peter Jennings, in his understated way, did hint at the lack of substance in the attack that wowed Roberts: “That, of course, has been one of the questions of this entire campaign…. Is the president successful when he campaigns against Jimmy Carter in attempting to campaign against Gov. Clinton?”
BEAUTY CONTEST: Brit Hume, covering the Bush campaign for ABC, gave a very enthusiastic evaluation of Bush’s performance: “It was much the most spirited and aggressive performance he’s had in a debate so far…. On the Iraqgate matter, he made a strong, I thought strongly worded defense of his policy, his actions toward Saddam Hussein.”
It is a mark of how removed pundits are from the substance of debates, and how focused they are on beauty contest issues, that Bush can be confronted with specific accusations from two opponents that he helped a dictator amass military might, and this can be considered a Bush victory–as long as he appears “strong.” Or “focused.” Or “animated.”
These qualities did not seem to impress voters–polls ranked either Perot or Clinton as the best–so Bush was not the “winner” because what he said swayed voters. He “won” because his sound-bites, attacks and one-liners were what the network spin doctors identify as good debating. Media commentary may be doing more to lower the quality of debate than any of the various formats ever could.
DOCUMENTARY RECORD: Ross Perot, in a challenge to reporters, told them to “pull all the old news articles” about what Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam Hussein before he invaded Kuwait. That’s not a bad idea. One place to start is the Murray Waas’ Village Voice piece of Jan. 22, 1991, which makes it clear that the infamous statement attributed to Glaspie (“We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreements with Kuwait”) was one of many statements from Bush administration officials–like Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly and State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler–that sent signals to Saddam Hussein that the U.S. would not strongly resist an Iraqi invasion.
Yet several news outlets ruled Perot’s charge off-base. The L.A. Times (10/20) wrote that Perot “went beyond the documentary record when he accused Bush of signaling Saddam Hussein that he could take the northern part of Kuwait in the summer of 1990.” But to take just one piece of evidence, the Washington Post (7/26/90) cited U.S. officials as saying, just six days before the invasion of Kuwait, that “an Iraqi attack on Kuwait would not draw a U.S. military response.”
MILLIE VS. MURPHY: Eighty-six percent of likely voters can tell you that Millie is the White House dog, and 89 percent can name Murphy Brown as the TV character that Dan Quayle attacked. But only 19 percent can identify Caspar Weinberger as the Reagan administration cabinet member recently indicted in the Iran/Contra investigation.
These are among the findings of a new poll commissioned by FAIR, which measures not only what people think, but what they know–and where they get their information. The findings suggest that the mass media, particularly television, do not succeed in informing their audience about many basic facts about politics and government. For example, 42 percent of those surveyed thought that the federal government spent more on foreign aid than on the military. For a copy of the full survey, call Janine Jackson at FAIR, 212-633-6700.
Counterspin is written by Jim Naureckas and edited by Jeff Cohen.
130 W. 25th St., New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212-633-6700 Fax: 212-727-7668
