Lets Play That Again Science Scope Vanessa a Klein

In a July appearance on CNN 'due south Paula Zahn Now , conservative pundit John Fund inadvertently captured the cool state of American television debate as he faced off with centrist columnist Matthew Miller:

Matt and I both hold that gay marriage is a error for slightly different reasons.

Such debates, spanning the spectrum from A to B, are a tv set staple. But the narrowness of these pundit mismatches isn't random. Though such debate segments purport to pit correct confronting left, centrist pundits are routinely substituted for the left on panels, while progressives are ofttimes excluded birthday.

Debates matching conservatives with centrists are a cable television tic so pervasive that a minor army of centrist pundits has formed whose motto might as well be, "I'thou not a leftist but I play one on Television receiver."

Past many measures, progressive stance holds its own and by some measures fifty-fifty surpasses conservative opinion in popularity (run into sidebar), and then at that place is no reasonable rationale for excluding progressives while showcasing conservatives and centrists. Yet it happens regularly.

"A good debate"

A "Hot Topics" segment near Iraq War issues on News From CNN (4/20/04) found ballast Wolf Blitzer pitting pro-war conservative Armstrong Williams against… pro-state of war centrist Peter Beinart, the editor of the New Republic mag. The 2 differed on subordinate issues, such as whether the White Business firm was also close to the Saudis (Beinart said yes, Williams said no), but there was no disagreement on the legitimacy of the state of war or occupation.

At one point in the discussion, perhaps concerned that his appearing reverse the hawkish Williams might mislead people about his ain support for the state of war, Beinart seemed compelled to enunciate his position: "Look, we supported—my magazine supported the war in Iraq. We still support the war in Republic of iraq." The segment concluded with Blitzer declaring information technology "a practiced debate."

Not that in that location aren't valid points to be debated betwixt the heart and the right, just equally there are valid disagreements betwixt the left and the center. Nonetheless, right-vs.-center discussions are the norm on TV news shows, while left-vs.-center debates-indeed, left-vs.-anyone debates—are rare.

A perusal of Television set give-and-take programs reveals a mutual design: Conservative guests espousing views from the correct wing of the Republican Party square off with centrists advocating positions from the right wing of the Autonomous Political party. Since bourgeois Republicans and centrist Democrats both tend to be corporate-friendly, such face-offs may be pleasing to television's owners and sponsors, simply leaving the left out of the contend is bad news for autonomous soapbox.

Bambi vs. Godzilla

The Fox cable network takes the concept of the lopsided debate to an farthermost, with ravenous right-wingers devouring timid moderates and calling them liberals. The contend show Hannity & Colmes is the model: Conservative host Hannity plays God-zilla to liberal host Colmes' Bambi (Actress! , xi-12/03). And the conservative and (more or less) liberal guests appearing on the show mostly follow adapt.

After Al Gore's speech in June faulting the Bush administration for the Abu Ghraib prison corruption scandal, a fuming Hannity framed a segment on Gore thusly: "Has the vanquished vice president lost all command?" In a discussion more about Gore'south speaking style than his substance, right-wing guest Ann Coulter took up Hannity's theme, calling Gore "crazy" and "basics."

Happily for his conservative opponents, Colmes' tepid defense force of Gore kept the focus on the question of the former vice president's sanity: "I still don't call up he's nuts. I call back he's fired up. I call up he'southward angry." While the left invitee, Democratic strategist Marianne Marsh, began by mildly defending Gore's voice communication, she quickly joined in the criticism of his performance: "I wouldn't give him big fashion points. . . . I don't agree with his style." When Coulter sarcastically suggested Hannity & Colme due south should play Gore's speech repeatedly and "let Marianne come on and say how reasonable he is," Marsh snapped, "I did not utilize the word reasonable." Such was the "left" defense force of a liberal speech communication by Al Gore on Play a trick on 's Hannity & Colmes .

A CNN specialty

Though lopsided debates can be found all over the telly dial, CNN , the original cablevision news aqueduct, pioneered cable pundit mismatches. In his new volume, The Republican Racket Machine: Correct-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, David Brock suggests the die was bandage early. Shortly after its launch in 1980, co-ordinate to Brock, CNN hired ten commentators; five were forceful conservatives and 2 were potent liberals. The remaining iii were less political: a "mildly liberal but nonpartisan" historian, a popular psychologist and an astrologer.

The centre-correct cable format was born in 1982 with the premiere of CNN 's Crossfire. Explicitly marketed as a primetime face-off between 1 host "from the correct" and some other "from the left," with corresponding guests from each side, Crossfire set the standard for debates pitting proxy progressives confronting committed conservatives (meet Extra!, 7-8/xc). The show'southward original hosts: from the correct, arch-conservative presidential adjutant Pat Buchanan, and from the left, Tom Braden—whose CIA career included supervising covert operations against Western Europe's left. Crossfire invitee Timothy Leary in one case described the show'south spectrum as "the left wing of the CIA debating the right wing of the CIA" (Rolling Stone , 12/14/89). New Democracy editor and self-described "wishy-washy moderate" Michael Kinsley (American Journalism Review, one-two/96) followed Braden into Crossfire 's left seat.

Crossfire's "from the left" job is currently shared by Autonomous political consultants Paul Begala and James Carville. Though more than antagonistic than previous Crossfire hosts, the 2 are best known for directing Pecker Clinton's centrist presidential campaign. Begala cheers his former boss for turning the party right, away from its traditional liberal base (Meet the Printing, 4/11/99): "You know, Bill Clinton saved the Democratic Party with Al Gore past pulling us back to the center, by disagreeing with the liberals on welfare reform and on offense and on trade."

Carville has similar praise for Clinton's centrism (CNBC, 2/23/00): "What he did was a political feat that is unmatched in American political history. He moved the Autonomous Party to the center… and kept the core Democratic voters."

Carville's client list raises even more questions most his qualifications every bit a progressive pundit. He served as a political gun-for-hire for conservative Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis in a losing 1993 campaign against socialist Andreas Papandreou (London Times, 10/30/93.) And Carville worked for the Venezuelan opposition in its recent failed attempt to oust President Hugo Chavez, a left-wing populist, in a recollect plebiscite (New York Times, iv/18/04.)

A glimpse of real dissent

Simply citing i correct-vs.-centre segment after another doesn't capture the full event of these pundit mismatches. Debates in which the left is left out are by definition exclusionary; the trouble is largely in what isn't said, the viewpoints that aren't aired. Seeing the rare authentic full-spectrum fence, an actual correct-vs.-left face off, is a reminder of just how stunted most Boob tube debates are.

A rare CNN debate over Iraq (CNN Sunday Dark, 6/27/04) pitted progressive foreign policy skilful Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies against old Republican National Committee communications director Cliff May. A forceful opponent of the Iraq War, Bennis called the occupation "illegal" and questioned whether the impending transfer of sovereignty had any meaning equally long as the U.S. maintained a military presence and controlled the coin needed for the Iraq's reconstruction:

The U.S. occupation authority is non going abroad. And the fact that we're calling it a transition of new sovereignty doesn't mean that sovereignty is going to be real with all the amount of power that the U.S. is going to exist maintaining.

But rare appearances by actual progressives such as Bennis are the exception, not the rule. At CNN, the practice of using centrists as stand up-ins for the left has become so institutionalized that the cable channel has developed its own stable of non-progressives to fill up the demand.

Progressive imposters

New Republic magazine editor Peter Beinart regularly criticizes Democrats for leaning left; he led his magazine to endorse Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the most conservative Democratic candidate in the primaries. Beinart has been a forceful cheerleader for the Republic of iraq war and occupation, and freely plays the patriotism carte du jour against those he considers too far to the left. Shortly after September 11, 2001, Beinart (New Republic, 9/24/01) said of progressive globalization activists planning protests in Washington, D.C.: "This nation is at present at war. And in such an environs, domestic political dissent is immoral without a prior statement of national solidarity, a choosing of sides."

Beinart's well-argued views authorize him equally an able debater—from the center, or perhaps fifty-fifty from the center-right on foreign policy issues. However, Beinart has virtually nothing to recommend him for the left chair in left-vs.-correct debates, except perhaps for his editorship of a magazine that was decades agone a breastwork of liberal stance, but now sits near the center of American politics. (See Not Even the New Republic, (Extra! , 9-ten/04.)

Beinart is frequently matched with Wall Street Journal editorialist John Fund on CNN 's Paula Zahn Now , and he'southward played the left role on other CNN shows reverse other reliably right-wing commentators, including Jonah Goldberg (News from CNN, v/14/04), Brent Bozell III (Paula Zahn Now, v/5/04) and Armstrong Williams (News from CNN, four/xx/04).

Centrism = sanity

Like Beinart, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein is an opinionated and high-contour debater. Just his avowedly centrist views poorly qualify him as a weigh to movement conservatives on TV. Closely allied with Beinart's brand of centrism, Klein (Time, 1/7/04) praised the New Republic'southward primary endorsement of Lieberman, describing the mag as representing "the moderate center, sane, office of the Democratic party. A fly of the political party that is totally in eclipse this year, unfortunately."

In a Fourth dimension column (5/31/04) headlined "Fighting for the Soul of the Democrats," Klein lamented the fact that Al From and his corporate sponsored centrist group, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), had become marginalized within the party for attacking anti-state of war Democrats like Howard Dean. Noting that a younger and less abrasive centrist group, the New Democrat Network, was gaining prominence in the political party, Klein wistfully recalled the DLC in better times, when it provided the "intellectual muscle" for the Clinton White House and helped push button the party rightward by "gleefully assault[ing] the reactionary left-the trade unions and bureaucrats who had a stake in the sometime system." He wrote approvingly of DLC calls for "financial responsibility (and free trade)" and "tough-minded welfare reform." Klein noted From'south autumn from favor with "a certain sadness" earlier concluding, "The Autonomous Political party needs him. But perchance non this year."

Klein appears again and again opposite rock-ribbed conservatives; Bush-league campaigner and former Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke is a favorite Klein opponent. Both were hired as CNN contributors at the aforementioned time concluding autumn, and over one six-month menstruation, between September 2003 and Feb 2004, they squared off 11 times on Paula Zahn Now . Klein's other conservative partners are familiar and unapologetic conservatives: John Fund (Paula Zahn At present, iv/9/04), Republican strategist Ed Rollins (Paula Zahn Now , 2/26/04) and Jonah Goldberg (Paula Zahn Now, 2/xiii/04).

On the March 29 Paula Zahn Now , Klein was the sole residue for not 1 simply 2 right-wingers, discussing National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's September 11 Commission testimony with both conservative Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions and bourgeois Wall Street Journal editor John Fund.

In Apr, Klein ventured beyond fifty-fifty DLC territory, writing in Time (4/12/04) that "the ideal step" for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry "would exist to brand [Republican Sen.] John McCain his pick for vice president and announce a government of national reconciliation composed of moderate Democrats and Republicans."

While it'due south a perfectly legitimate centrist opinion, one would call back calling for Democrats to place a Republican on their national ticket would disqualify a pundit from the "left" chair in television debates. (McCain may be a quirky bourgeois, deviating from the right'southward line on issues such equally campaign finance and telecommunications policy, but he's no moderate. The Voteview system, which sorts legislators mathematically based on how often they vote with other conservatives or liberals, finds that McCain is the fourth-well-nigh conservative senator.)

While centrists similar Klein frequently represent the left on tv set debates, the reverse situation is almost unthinkable. I could only imagine the outcry from conservatives if their nearly prominent pundits routinely called for Republicans to run away from the GOP base, or encouraged George W. Bush to choose a quirky Democrat similar erstwhile Sen. Bob Kerrey every bit his running mate.

"Tony Blair Democrat"

Columnist Matthew Miller is another prominent stand-in for the left. His appearances onNews from CNN include spots reverse conservative National Review columnist Robert George (2/20/04), Republican pollster Kelly-anne Conway (12/23/03) and right-wing ranter Ann Coulter (12/12/03). Despite what these pairings imply, Miller is no left-wing equivalent to the likes of Conway and Coulter. A former senior editor of the centrist New Democracy who describes himself as a "Tony Blair Democrat" (Philadelphia Inquirer, iv/25/03), Miller espouses a political agenda he calls "radical centrism."

"What American politics urgently needs," he wrote in a New York Times op-ed last year (nine/four/03), "is not a new left, only a new middle." Miller co-hosts a syndicated radio show called Left, Right & Center, where he occupies the "center" position. Bodily liberal Robert Kuttner (American Prospect , 12/03) described Miller's brand of centrism every bit "a recipe for continued shifts to the correct. Information technology's no surprise that Miller is emerging as the conservatives' favorite liberal."

Indeed, actualization on News From CNN (12/23/03) debating Conway, Miller demonstrated this appeal. When anchor Wolf Blitzer read a viewer e-mail questioning the White House claim that Saddam Hussein's capture made Americans safer, Conway dismissed the viewer as a probable Howard Dean voter and cited more conservative Democrats who agreed with the White House, calculation: "I imagine honest Democrats, like Matt Miller, would admit that capturing Saddam has made Americans safer."

Blitzer then put it to Miller: "Well, concord on. Let'south ask that honest Democrat."

Miller responded: "I recollect capturing Saddam Hussein was a great thing. It's fabricated America safer, and information technology's rid the world of this brutal tyrant." Afterwards briefly noting the connected threat of terrorism, Miller ended his answer with a token feint toward criticism of the White House: "I retrieve there are means that you can criticize the Bush assistants for not having done everything it needs to."

Play a joke on's proxies

CNN isn't alone in its use of proxy progressives. One of Fox's leading tepid liberals is attorney Susan Estrich. A Democrat, Estrich penned a U.s.a. Today column during the Clinton era (6/22/95) headlined "Permit Clinton Be the Centrist Clinton." More recently, she cheered the campaign of California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, accepting a job working on his transition squad when he won. Estrich has faced conservatives including Republican strategist Chris Horner (Hannity & Colmes, 5/14/04), former Sen. Al D'Amato (Hannity & Colmes , 4/thirteen/04) and Bush advisor Charlie Blackness (Large Story , 1/24/04)

She frequently appears on Fox 's Hannity & Colmes. Hannity, whose typical treatment of progressives is famously nasty, more once has called her his "favorite liberal," equally in this show-endmost lovefest (v/23/04):

Hannity: Susan, it's always a pleasure.

Estrich: Always a pleasure, Sean.

Hannity: My favorite liberal, Susan.

Estrich: My favorite bourgeois, Sean.

Unsurprisingly, Estrich fills in for "left" host Alan Colmes when he takes fourth dimension off.

Broadcast bias

Broadcast news shows can stack the deck just like the cable channels. Conservative columnist George Volition is a weekly presence on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC , just he faces no regular analogue from the left. The show does feature the occasional liberal guest, only the consistency of Will's presence gives him and his ideas an air of normalcy unmatched by whatsoever progressive presence.

The Chris Matthews Testify on NBC regularly features a four member panel made up by and large of reporters such equally Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, Howard Fineman of Newsweek and Katty Kay of the BBC . The weekly Lord's day forenoon show usually features at to the lowest degree one well-known bourgeois pundit as well—including such forceful conservatives as Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot and Periodical columnist Peggy Noonan. (Some weeks the show features two conservatives; e.1000., its April 4 broadcast included Andrew Sullivan and Laura Ingraham as panelists.)

But the show's right-leaning guests rarely face forceful progressive opponents. In one recent 2-month period (4/1/04-6/i/04), Matthews featured eight appearances past motion conservatives and just three by guests who even leaned left—moderately liberal Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page (twice) and Cynthia Tucker, columnist and Atlanta Journal & Constitution editorial page editor.

Conservatives vs. journalists

As Chris Matthews' circulate program shows, there are many ways to shuffle the format in guild to exclude or downplay authentic progressive voices. Some other variant of the mismatched pundit format pits conservatives—either activists or opinion journalists—confronting straight news reporters. These pairings are inevitably unfair, since the conservatives are costless to be as opinionated every bit they like, while news reporters are restrained by the need to appear impartial. (Of class, asserting a centrist opinion isn't likely to get you in trouble with your boss, while taking a potent progressive stand might.)

Debates pitting mainstream journalists confronting progressives, meanwhile, are well-nigh nonexistent. Assuming that a news reporter can only be balanced by a conservative reinforces the myth that journalists—and journalism—inherently lean left.

A total-page advertisement past MSNBC in the New York Times in January (1/19/04) plugged the cablevision network's upcoming Iowa Caucuses coverage with a flick of the on-air crew that would be providing "LIVE TEAM COVERAGE from the pros who know politics from the inside out."

Who were the pros? The accompanying picture show showed Chris Matthews (who anchors MSNBC's Hardball) flanked past half dozen other MSNBC teammates: conservative pundits Peggy Noonan, Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan, along with journalists Norah O'Donnell, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman. Apparently, coverage of the selection of a Democratic presidential candidate didn't demand input from anyone who was at freedom to publicly self-identify equally left of centre.

The conservative-vs.-reporter formula is common. On Pull a fast one on on the Record (6/18/04), Christian Science Monitor reporter Liz Marlantes discussed the Bush-league/McCain relationship with bourgeois National Review editor Rich Lowry. On MSNBC 'south Hardball (v/24/04), Newsweek 'southward Howard Fine-man discussed the Iraqi insurgency with former Republican Rep. Joe Scarborough. FAIR'due south 2003 report of CNN's Reliable Sources (Extra!, three-four/03) found the plan, which is supposed to monitor dubious media practices, regularly presenting mismatched panels where right-leaning pundits faced off with mainstream reporters in discussions about the media.

The costs of exclusion

Editor Lewis Lapham wrote in Harper's (nine/04) that neoconservative guru Irving Kristol once told him that he had advised motorcar companies to withhold advert from media outlets that didn't reflect the companies' social and political views. Kristol explained his logic: "Why empower your enemies? Why throw pearls to swine?"

Many sponsors have undoubtedly come up to that same determination without Kristol's help, simply the story points to one reason why Boob tube news shows consistently skew political debate by substituting centrists and journalists for progressives: the TV industry'due south utter dependence on corporate advertisers for its revenues.

Phil Donahue's experience at MSNBC provides another case of Television set industry decision-makers' skittishness about airing progressive opinion. When Donahue was canceled in early 2003, after just 7 months on the air, the show had the all-time ratings on MSNBC—surpassing its closest MSNBC rival, Hardball with Chris Matthews. The conclusion was explained in an internal NBC study that described Donahue every bit a political liability, despite his popularity (All Your Tv, 2/25/03).

The report worried that Donahue would present a "difficult public face for NBC in a fourth dimension of war," since the host seemed to "delight in presenting guests who are anti-state of war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." And it warned the testify could become "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

18 months on, the U.Southward. is enmeshed in a messy war in Iraq made possible in part past the lack of debate before the war. Having at present been exposed to some of the facts and arguments that were squelched in the run-upwardly to the war, a majority of the American public, polls show, now view the Iraq War every bit a fault (New York Times /CBS News poll, vii/11-fifteen/04). With a national election looming in Nov, Americans face serious choices about scores of international and domestic issues. Unfortunately, the corporate media gatekeepers show no signs that they will broaden television panels to reflect the broad range of opinion held by the American people.

SIDEBAR:

Are Progressive Views Unpopular?

Why does idiot box so ofttimes feature centrists instead of leftists in debates with the right? Are progressive opinions so much less pop than views from the center or the right?

Certainly not on the event that has dominated television for the past two years—Iraq. At the time of Secretary of Country Colin Powell's February 2003 U.North. accost, 61 percent of respondents told a CBS poll that the U.S. should "wait and give the Un and weapons inspectors more fourth dimension"—a viewpoint rarely heard in TV debates. Early in the Iraq invasion, when the state of war was at its virtually popular, still more than than 1 in 4 Americans opposed it (Extra!, 5-6/03). And support for the war has steadily declined since. A July New York Times/CBS News poll found that 62 percent of respondents did not think it was worth going to state of war in Iraq; where are the pundits who speak for this majority, and why is the 34 percent minority who say the war was worth it so overrepresented in television debates?

It'due south true that in that location are problems where the progressive position is unpopular—for case, polls by Gallup (5/04) and Harris (12/03) have found support for capital penalization hovering effectually seventy per centum. Only on a range of other issues, including corporate power, environmental protection, gun command and healthcare, a bulk of Americans take a progressive stance.

Eighty-3 percent of respondents told a February 2004 Harris poll that "big companies" have as well much "power in influencing authorities policy, politicians and policymakers in Washington."

L-v percent of respondents told Gallup (3/04) that the U.South. was doing "besides little" to protect the environment; and 53 per centum told some other Gallup poll (i/04) that gun control laws should be "more than strict."

That Americans support taxation cuts is a conservative article of religion and a common centerpiece for Republican campaigns. But when ABC /Washington Mail service poll asked (x/03), "Which of these exercise yous recollect is more of import: providing healthcare coverage for all Americans, even if it means raising taxes, OR holding downward taxes, even if it means some Americans do not have healthcare coverage?" The progressive "coverage for all" view received 79 percentage support, overwhelming the conservative "lower taxes" position.

If the left is and then out of favor as to deserve next to no representation, why does the left-leaning Nation magazine lead all American opinion magazines in circulation? With 165,000 subscribers, The Nation not only edges out National Review, the leading correct-wing opinion journal (155,000), it trounces the centristNew Republic (61,000). Writers from the New Republic and National Review (and several smaller circulation bourgeois magazines) appear on national television on a daily basis, while pundits from The Nation and other left-of-center magazines—like Mother Jones, an investigative monthly with a paid apportionment of 236,000—appear far less ofttimes.

To put information technology simply, the range of viewpoints offered in TV debates does not reflect the full range of American opinion. Consider the spectrum of congressional views, spanning from staunchly conservative legislators who are not afraid to criticize the Bush-league administration from the right, to unabashed liberals who, earlier, criticized the Clinton administration from the left. For some reason, pundits who share the views of leading congressional progressives, like Rep. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.), Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D.-Sick.), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D.-Ore.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D.-Calif.), are hard to find in cable news debates. What is the justification for cable TV producers selecting a narrower range of pundits than the range of representatives elected by the American people?

And why limit the scope of acceptable commentary to a congressional spectrum dominated by the two major political parties? Increasing numbers of voters do not place with either of the ii dominant parties; co-ordinate to a 2002 ABC /Washington Postal service poll, more than a third of the electorate (35 pct) recall of themselves equally independents, a larger proportion than identified as Democrats (32 percent) or Republicans (28 percent).

And that leaves aside non-voters. As Micah Sifry points out in the American Prospect (12/31/00), many non-voters pass up to vote not out of apathy but because they are disaffected by a system that they see every bit offering unsatisfactory choices. According to two polls cited by Sifry, these non-voters tend to exist more liberal than their voting counterparts. Perhaps part of the reason for their alienation is that the media spectrum is fifty-fifty narrower than the balloter choices. Whatever the example, journalists have a responsibleness to represent citizens who practice not identify with the ii major parties.

—Due south.R. and A.K.

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Source: https://fair.org/extra/im-not-a-leftist-but-i-play-one-on-tv/

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