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 Caveat lector 12 June 2000 Our current howler (part IV): Once-told tale
"Sometimes it's simply hard to believe the poverty of our public discourse." Those were our incomparable words as we started this story-cycle last week. We thought of our comment just yesterday morning, as we read Steven Weisman in the New York Times. Weisman's "Editorial Observer" appeared under the predictable headline, "Trotting Out the Latest Reinvention of Al Gore:"
In other words, a candidate "reinvents himself" by 1) avoiding personal attacks and 2) offering big policy ideas. If there is self-parody here, it is that of the press corps, in its latest Month of Memorization. Weisman was holding court on Day 14 of the latest Spin Fiesta, repeating what every other pundit on earth had said. His ability to stick to Approved Pundit Scripts was matched by his lightweight reasoning:
It's the very question which we began to raise in last Friday's DAILY HOWLER (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/9/00). By the way, we note that Weisman's own language implies that Bush has also engaged in "reinvention." So why has Gore alone drawn ridicule? Listen to Weisman's explanation:
Weisman nowhere disagrees with this "dominant theory." Gore's "reinventions" have alone "drawn ridicule" because Gore doesn't "connect with people." We guess this theory all depends on which "people" Weisman means. For the record, the "ridicule" of Gore's latest "reinvention" did not come from the voters. The public didn't raise the idea that Gore "reinvented" himself. The theory—and the subsequent ridicule—came from the press corps itself. As we've noted, it started with Howard Fineman's June 5 Newsweek piece (released on May 29); it was the headline on the Fineman piece which first referred to Gore's "latest makeover," and it was Fineman who started the open ridicule on the May 30 News with Brian Williams (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/7/00). The copy-cats took it from there. In yesterday's article, Weisman did what pundits so often do—he described the press corps' own plain conduct, then attributed that conduct to somebody else. As we've seen before, "the voters" and the "late-night comics" are the two stool pigeons most frequently named when the hopeless press corps wants to pretend that its propaganda began somewhere else. Weisman did introduce one new idea—the idea that Bush has done the same things as Gore, but just hasn't been ridiculed for it. Indeed, we were struck by that very same thought when we read Terry Neal's piece in last Friday's Washington Post. According to Neal, the GOP is "planning a summer convention that minimizes attack politics." Why has the party decided to play down attacks? Here was one part of the background:
Ohmigod! According to Neal, the Bush campaign has used focus groups and polling data, and changed the hopeful's approach! If you wanted to, you could almost say that Bush had thus "reinvented himself." Indeed, Neal also stated in his piece that Bush will avoid certain issues at the convention:
Bush's tax cut was once "rolled out" as a major part of his campaign. We have no complaint with the Bush campaign—none at all—for the way it has planned its convention. But we couldn't help thinking how easy it would be—to ridicule the conduct of the Bush campaign as the Gore campaign has been ridiculed. Remember, Brian Williams introduced "focus groups" into the mocking of Reinvented Gore; he said that Fineman's article described their use, although the article said no such thing. According to Neal, the Bush campaign had used focus groups—and changed Bush's tack in the process. That's right, folks. If the scribes wanted to be as silly about Governor Bush as they've already been about Vice President Gore, it wouldn't be hard to work it out. Here are Bush's, what, five or six reinventions:
The truth is, you can gimmick up as many silly "versions" of Bush as you can of Gore. It's a snap. But there was the gang on Special Report peddling the GoreSpin last Thursday. You'll surely think we're making this up. But Brit began the panel like this:
Moving to a larger building is now folded into "reinvention." And the spin is furthered by mentioning something that Gore hasn't done (changing clothes). In response, Morton Kondracke was strictly professional; he mentioned Gore's new proposal to "lockbox" Medicare surpluses. Kondracke said nothing on the "reinvention" theme; he simply discussed the proposal's merits. But, asked to comment on the proposal, Juan Williams ran back to the spin:
That's what he thought, but instead, he said, "I don't know how you can reinvent yourself!" Thinking one thing, but always stating the spin? It's known as "Devotion to message." Moments later, Kondracke brought the analysts out of their chairs with this double-dipper performance:
According to Kondracke, Gore had reinvented himself twice in the last two weeks! Bingo! But that's how it is with Official Spin. Someone always finds a way to "ratchet it" to the next level. (See postscript—in fact, do not miss.) Needless to say, the panel had engaged in gruesome critique, in which every action is forced to fit the Spin Point of the Fortnight. Williams thinks: The Medicare lockbox won't change votes. Williams says: I don't see how you can reinvent yourself. Why is this image being forced on Gore, when Weisman and Neal—and Gergen too—noted that Bush has also "reinvented?" That takes us back to Lawrence O'Donnell, making a sage point on Hardball last month. Tomorrow—a Howler epilog: Lawrence O'Donnell's sage point last month has plainly been acted out since. Postscript—The next level: Someone always seems to take the Official Spin up to the next level. Last fall, pundits spent a month embarrassing themselves about the number of buttons on Gore's suits (three). Three-button suits had been in fashion for years; Brooks Brothers (!), in the Wall Street Journal (!), was running ads for such suits at the time. Brooks Brothers!! But the Official Spin was hard and unyielding: Gore had taken some weird advice on clothes from an overpaid "guru." The pundits took turns embarrassing themselves with their inane and vacuous comments. Finally, Arianna Huffington improved the news on Rivera Live one night:
In a year of embarrassing and inane pundit commentary, we think this one may have taken the cake. After weeks of complaining about three-button suits, Huffington found a way to top other scribes. We have pointed this out again and again: When the pundits agree to say the same thing, the only way to stand out is by saying it larger. This leads to spinning the message up—to saying that Gore is wearing four-button suits, or to saying that he reinvented himself two times. We pray that history will look back with jaws agape at our press corps' utter inanity. But understand this: If this hopeless crew had to earn its keep, they'd all have been fired long ago.
The Daily update (6/12/00) They edit, we decide: Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton did some funnin' at the Albany Gridiron Dinner. Several shows played short clips of her humorous speech. The photo album with the Yankees cap was actually pretty funny (and it was very good politics). And a few jokes which were played on the Sunday shows seemed to get pretty good laughs. But we knew the election was underway when we watched those scamps on Fox News Sunday. They played an HRC joke that fell flat. Here's the full tape from the show:
Huh? The panel didn't know what to say, either. Here was the best they could muster:
It was pretty clear, on Fox News Sunday, that Mrs. Clinton's weird joke just fell flat. But wouldn't you know it? They played the same joke on Meet the Press—and you could hear that the joke got a pretty good laugh. And on Meet the Press, they did a good thing. They played the whole joke, start to finish:
The part in bold is what's known as the "premise." On Fox News Sunday, they absent-mindedly left it out. We know a little bit about jokes, and if you leave out the premise, all jokes will fall flat. Does somebody know that at FNS, too? Fox loves to say, "We report, you decide." In this case, it seems like they edited. Commentary by Tony Snow, Tish Durkin |