Last night in the post-debate open thread, I promised to eat my socks if the NY Times, Washington Post, and CNN all reported the two most substantive policy issues debated on Monday night. In my opinion, they were:
- the software jobs moving to India (or "WTO") story; and
- Iraq and President Bush (Clark: "I'm not attacking the president because he's attacking terrorists. I'm attacking him because he's not attacking terrorists.")
This group has debated a few times before and has the talking points down to one or two manageable sound bites. Their positions and arguments are well known. For the most part, they performed as expected.
But what would Americans hear about??
So, true to my word, I checked each website tonight. I could barely find any evidence that there WAS a debate last night, let alone what was said. Diligent searching produced articles, a shorter version of which is as follows:
NY Times: Dean attacked by Gephardt AND Kerry because he "flip-flopped" on Medicare and Iraq, but what those positions are or were is left to the reader's imagination, because there's some rockem' sockem' robots action between Dean and Gephardt about balancing state budgets and voting to give the President unbridled war power. Whew! What a fight. I'm tired.
CNN barely had the story still in its archive. I had to search for 10 minutes to find it on the web site. When I did, it was the SAME horse hockey unedited AP feed from last night. It sounded like the final act of Julius Caesar with Howard Dean in the starring role. It wasn't.
The Washington Post is the clear winner. Dan Balz actually WROTE AN ARTICLE that sounded like he saw the debate. But again, Gephardt attacked Dean about balancing the state budget on the backs of the most vulnerable. Dean attacked Gephardt, who apparantly doesn't have a "fresh face." Wha huh? Kerry then defiantly accused Dean of balancing the state budget on the backs of the teacher's pension fund and drugs for seniors.
Balz did get into the candidate's "rhetoric" about Iraq, without mentioning what their positions might possibly be. Rhetoric. Not policy. Rhetoric.
Then, continuing with the Iraq theme, Balz went on to point out Gephardt attacked Dean for lack of foreign policy experience, and vice versa. Kerry then joined in to make it a three-way. There's a policy disagreement if I ever saw one.
In sum, no mention of jobs moving to India or WTO policy. Balz made some vague reference to W's handling of the run-up to Iraq and the votes in Congress. Of course there was no mention of Bush's ad accusing the "democrat party" of being unpatriotic. None. The Times mentioned that as the candidates were letting loose their "rhetoric" (yes, there too), W was addressing the troops and meeting with their families out West. Awww.
My socks were pleased to find out they are in NO DANGER.
If anyone here disagrees, fine, let me have it.
My point is that the press is firmly DENYING and OBSTRUCTING the party in opposition to get its message out a year before the election.
Why does this matter?? I've lived through Carter, Reagan, REAGAN, Bush, clinton, CLINTON, and now BushII. Governance matters. Policy matters. And, most importantly, the media matters.
Conventional wisdom changes very slowly, like a large steamship changing course. So far it appears that, despite some recent questions about Iraq and WMD, the media has decided to return to their original course of not questioning W. The media steamship stopped turning and, I think, has actually turned back to where we were last year before some sunlight started to show through W's WMD shenanigans.
Instead of any content that might lead to criticism of W, the press will continue to focus solely on strategy and disagreements, to the exclusion of the positions themselves and their implications. Medicare is a prime example.
Or, as Candy Crowley announced post-debate last night, "there was nothing new here tonight. They just ratcheted up the tone."
Nothing new, indeed, Candy.
Ideas, anyone?