Between Friends

Thinking about Wolf Blitzer's atrocious performance as moderator and Tim Russert's slicker, better-executed version of the same BS at the previous Democratic debate, is one reminder that at least one reason the GOP contenders haven't gotten this kind of roasting is that I feel like I've seen them debate on Fox News a lot. Meanwhile, though I wouldn't normally spend a lot of time praising a Republican propaganda outlet, this actually seems like a very wise and appropriate strategy. A primary campaign, after all, is an inside-the-family argument about the direction of a political party and a political movement. It's very appropriate, under the circumstances, for the debate to be moderate by someone who's part of the family and can try to maintain a tone and focus designed to appeal to the broader family that's making the decisions.

Blitzer and Russert, by contrast, aren't trying to help advance an intra-family argument. Instead, they're trying to get further up the totem poll of "respectable" DC media, where you prove your chops through relentless hostility to substantive discussion about issues.

Obviously, since there's no Fox News of the left, Democrats can't directly adopt the GOP strategy. But it has some real merit to it. I'd much rather see a debate moderated by am undecided progressive who's trying to learn more -- and help fellow progressives learn more -- about the candidates for the nomination than by a cynical-yet-ignorant DC talking head with a nose for blood. Since the primary season now last over six million months, the candidates all have plenty of opportunity to spar with brain-dead television interviewers outside of the debates.

Comments

This is probably right. But it's worth pointing out that Wolf Blitzer is a uniquely unappealing person. His questions are reflexively self-aggrandizing, referring whenever possible to conversations he's had with the candidates and other world leaders. And last night, he habitually interrupted the candidates just as they were on the verge of making a strong statement or connecting with the crowd.

In short, Blitzer sucks so much that it may warp our analysis of the larger issues.

Posted by southpaw | November 16, 2007 8:34 AM

Matt, this is so fucking right on.

But imagine for a moment if their were a "Fox News of the Left," and Democrats held their debates on it. In this country we have Radical Left (MoveOn! Code Pink! HuffPost! Oh My!) but no equivalent on the right, in the eyes of the MSM.

Posted by Bill | November 16, 2007 8:43 AM

I agree completely, Matt. Perhaps your uncommitted progressive might pair with some retired Dem elder statesperson (thought finding one not affiliated with any campaign might be hard). But would CNN or any network air or promote such a debate if its own people weren't running it? One wonders.

Posted by Ryan | November 16, 2007 8:51 AM

Has anyone figured out why we need so many debates in the first place? Seems like there is one every second week. To me that is the problem - quantity verses quality. And it is happening to news in general. 24 hr news TV ruined 'news'. It has become a pure business, another form of reality television for the politically obsessed. They keep repeating the same shit day in and day out. Naturally they want gotcha moments to spice things up. And who better to beat up on than the 'wimpy' Democrat party. Even Fox News aside, all TV types treat GOP candidates much better and give them respect (even where none is due - Tancredo, come on!). Seems to me they are scared of Republicans.

Posted by 2cynicalbyhalf | November 16, 2007 8:56 AM

I watched horrified as Wolf Blitzer seized on (Biden? Richards? Dodd?) some candidate's loose phrase about Pakistan that sometimes you can't sacrifice national security for human rights.

At that very moment, I saw Blitzer change. He had a moment to be a Fake Journalist with Breaking Nooz:

BLITZER: "So would you give up American security for human rights? Wouldja? Wouljda? Huh? Huh? Which one's of you are gonna go on record as wanting to sacrifice AMERICAN SECURITY for some lousy human rights?? Huh? Huh? ANSWER THE KWESCHIN!!!"

Posted by El Cid | November 16, 2007 9:14 AM

Absolutely right on here.

Posted by a-train | November 16, 2007 9:16 AM

Who is the audience for these debates?

I care about policy, so I don't watch these little reality TV shows. I can't see why people who care less about politics than I do would watch, either.

Is the target (and actual) audience any bigger than DC journalists?

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | November 16, 2007 9:30 AM

Sorry to spoil the party, but absolutely not right on.

MY: "Blitzer and Russert, by contrast, aren't trying to help advance an intra-family argument. Instead, they're trying to get further up the totem poll of "respectable" DC media, where you prove your chops through relentless hostility to substantive discussion about issues."

No. Relentless hostility to Democrats and progressive issues is the correct diagnosis. The GOP debated on MSNBC and it was nothing like their Dem debate.

Posted by Andruw | November 16, 2007 9:50 AM

For some reason Charlie Rose as moderator pops into my head.

Posted by Andy | November 16, 2007 10:05 AM

1) Andruw: I think that what should be the understood, unspoken truth here is that "respectable" in DC media = hostile to anything less than manly or anything with even the slightest bit of complexity in politics. There would be hostile questions to the Republicans, but they would be either smug like last night (playing into right wing stereotypes of the media = win for the right) or attacks on someone's insufficient manliness (boosting manliness = win for the right). That is, the Washington establishment media are hostile to progressives, but it doesn't matter what party those progressives belong to (they just all belong to the same one at this point).

2) Let's be honest: Matt's just angling for a bigger gig. "Tonight's Democratic debate will be hosted by Atlantic Media superblogger and Punisher enthusiast Matthew Yglesias."

Posted by jhupp | November 16, 2007 10:08 AM

I'd nominate Bill Moyers for the job.

Posted by Mark Close | November 16, 2007 10:09 AM

Obviously, since there's no Fox News of the left, Democrats can't directly adopt the GOP strategy.

Couldn't you just have Keith Olberman moderate? Dan Rather? Ted Koppel? There's a lot of guys out there I understand to be sympathetic towards Democrats. The Charlie Rose suggestion is a good one as well.

Blitzer's an idiot no matter what context we're talking about.

Posted by right | November 16, 2007 10:10 AM

No. Relentless hostility to Democrats and progressive issues is the correct diagnosis. The GOP debated on MSNBC and it was nothing like their Dem debate.
Posted by Andruw | November 16, 2007 9:50 AM

What a conservative apologist.
Oh yes Americans are naturally republican conservatives, all evidence to the contrary is just a big liberal lie....

It takes an avalanche of lies to keep republicans in office and progressive policies off the books. Your just another cog in the conservative republican shitte machine.

Posted by Northern Observer | November 16, 2007 10:31 AM

I bet that if the moderators really went up there and pitched softballs like Matthew seems to want ("Senator, tell us about your health care plan..."), we'd all be complaining about that, too.

I'm sure I would. I don't think you realize how wrong things would go if someone as experienced in bullshitting as a U.S. Senator were given the floor in that way.

Posted by too many steves | November 16, 2007 10:32 AM

I'd nominate Bill Moyers for the job.

I second that nomination. Heck, I'd pay to see that dabate. With all due respect to Keith Olberman, Dan Rather, and Ted Koppel, not so much.

Posted by Jeff S. | November 16, 2007 10:33 AM

Methinks Northern Observer has a reading comprehension problem, in addition to an inability to write.

Posted by Andruw | November 16, 2007 10:35 AM

I can't help thinking that, come the general election, poor Rudy is going to come completely unhinged when pledges to double the size of Guantanamo or whatever no longer cut it in a debate.

Posted by Scott Ferguson | November 16, 2007 10:38 AM

where you prove your chops through relentless hostility to substantive discussion about issues.

More like where you keep your job by trying to generate news and produce ratings.

Unfortunately, you can't do that by being nice and allowing long-winded, detailed wonkery as answers.

Blitzer goes in knowing he needs to get soundbites to be used on the post-debate wrap up show, Larry King, and Good Morning with Haircut and Short Skirt.

The angrier and cattier - even the crazier - the better.

The execs are sitting around hoping Blitzer can produce a "Dean scream" moment that they can play over, and over ... and over.

Short of that, they'll take a food fight.

Don't blame Blitzer - ratings are hostile to substantive discussions about issues.

If you don't want ratings to be a factor, all the debates should be on PBS/NPR - which would be fine with me.

/Oh, and Ron Paul won the debate last night - by a wide margin.

Posted by SoCalJustice | November 16, 2007 10:39 AM

For some reason Charlie Rose as moderator pops into my head.

Charlie Rose is a precious, genteel version of Wolf Blitzer. Yes yes yes, he gets good guests, and his show has lots of time for everyone to talk. But he is the personification of Beltway Moderation For Its Own Sake. Plus, 73% of the debate time would be taken up by Rose attempting to formulate a coherent question (using the phrase 'this whole notion' in every other clause).

Part of the conservative meta-crit of Democrats and liberals is that they are chowderheads, instead of clear-minded, lucid. If you look up 'chowderhead' in the dictionary, there's a picture of Rose....

Part of *my* meta-crit of mainstream US political culture - and US culture in general - is that we tolerate mediocrity WAY too much. The American People are not nearly as boring, bland and mediocre as are so many of our cultural artifacts, particularly political exponents. We get Wolf B. not because that's 'what people want' or deserve; we get him (and Rose, for the middlebrows) for the same reason that people who attended circuses got geeks and freaks: the people who own networks, etc. think they are somehow separate from the country in which they live and make money, and therefore go with the very cheapest, most sure-fire spectacle. I hope part of our putative political return-to-a-basis-in-reality is a lower tolerance for stonking mediocrity. Boringness is offensive and a sin.

Posted by jonnybutter | November 16, 2007 10:41 AM

I believe Andruws point was that the GOP does not get the same bad treatment from non-fox channels that the Dems get. He was actually more extreme than Matt, not an apologist at all.

Posted by Grogor | November 16, 2007 10:42 AM

"a debate moderated by am undecided progressive who's trying to learn more -- and help fellow progressives learn more -- about the candidates for the nomination"

dude--the job description screams 'matthew yglesias'. and you know you want it.

Posted by kid bitzer | November 16, 2007 10:43 AM

"dude--the job description screams 'matthew yglesias'. and you know you want it."

yeah, but can he wear his hoodie?

Posted by Grogor | November 16, 2007 10:45 AM

OK, so why is there no FOX News of the left? Maybe we should mobilize all the vaunted fund-raising capabilities of the internet to raise the capital to launch our own version of a "fair and balanced" news network, stocked with the serious reportorial talent, unapologetic progressive populist spirit, bullshit-clearing bravado, class warfare zest and entertaining production values needed to attract a broad audience and take on Murdoch.

But for now, could we please stop infantilizing our candidates?!

After two terms of a presidency where we have had a huge national debate about the proper roles of force, democracy promotion and national self-interest in national security decision-making, how can anyone think that a question more-or-less along the lines of the Blitzer question is inappropriate? There is now an ongoing crisis in the nuclear state of Pakistan in which the question of the relative importance of national security and democracy promotion in foreign policy decision-making has been raised right to the top of the agenda again.

All of this defensive bitching and moaning about the media is awful and debilitating. We've been hearing a lot of complaints from the Democratic blogs over the past several years about Democratic weakness. But what I'm seeing now is that a lot of us Democrats are hapless enablers of weakness. Instead of encouraging our candidates to be blunt, stand-up leaders who seize the opportunity provided by every question thrown at them, we encourage them to dither and avoid, and whine about inappropriate questions and unfair interviewers. If a future president can't handle the very modest heat produced by Wolf Blitzer, how is that person going to handle Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, Benyamin Netanyahu, Hosni Mubarack and Hugo Chavez?

These guys are not running for faculty senate president, or school board chairman, or alderman, or UN General Secretary, or parent of the year. They're running for US President, which is a highly specific and demanding job calling for a unique set of talents and dispositions, incongruously fusing the strongest traits of Marcus Aurelius, Lyndon Johnson, Dag Hammarskjold and Tony Soprano all at once.

There are persistent weakness in the latter-day Democratic approach to politics that we simply must get over. One is the desire to be liked by everyone, offend no one and punt when the going gets rough. The overused "false dichotomy" response is also now a democratic standard, as is the excuse that the issues are all so terribly complex or ambiguous that the inability to answer direct questions is a sign of superior intelligence.

But sometimes there really are hard and plain choices in life, and you can't have it every way at once. Blitzer's question could have been formulated more sharply, but the general intent was rather clear. It can be put this way: "If as president you are confronted with a situation in which you are forced to decide between two options, one of which best promotes global human rights but does some damage to US national security, and the other of which best promotes US national security but does some damage to global human rights, which would you choose?" This really is a perfectly appropriate question, and one for which the candidates should be expected to provide an unequivocal answer.

As an old school one-worlder internationalist myself, who does not seek the job of US president, I'm willing to say that there are global aspirations that rank higher in my book than the national security of any single nation, including this one. But in the context of US presidential politics, contested by people who do seek the presidency, Clinton gave the right answer.

There are a whole bunch of conversations or debates that people like Matt, and apparently a whole bunch of other bloggers, would prefer not to have - because the questions they raise are difficult and uncomfortable. But again, stop infantilizing our candidates! We do no service to them by encouraging them to be equivocating, difficulty-evading babies, whining about the media all the way to defeat.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 16, 2007 10:47 AM

Al Gore is available AND he has a TV network.

Also I still like my idea of one on one debates with Charlie Rose as referee, throwing out a subject and letting them go for a reasonable amount of time.

Posted by Carl | November 16, 2007 11:18 AM

Dan Kervick, I would agree with you if Wolf's questions weren't such crap. He wasn't asking good questions like how someone should have asked Bush "why would a Stalinist like Saddam give WMD's to a bunch of religious wackos he couldn't trust?" He was asking about state issues and making up dumb scenarios. He reminds me of that episode of Frasier where the dad asked Frasier that if a talking comet was going to destroy the earth unless Frasier committed perjury, would he do it? Who the fuck cares? All it does is show how good a candidate is at answering BS questions on live tv to a retard. The skills that one would use on Putin or Chavez aren't the same ones one would use on Wolfie. It's like using dancing as a metric for how well someone fucks. It's not that indicative.

"But sometimes there really are hard and plain choices in life, and you can't have it every way at once. Blitzer's question could have been formulated more sharply, but the general intent was rather clear. It can be put this way: "If as president you are confronted with a situation in which you are forced to decide between two options, one of which best promotes global human rights but does some damage to US national security, and the other of which best promotes US national security but does some damage to global human rights, which would you choose?" This really is a perfectly appropriate question, and one for which the candidates should be expected to provide an unequivocal answer."

Who would you rather kill, your wife or your mother if you had to? How about a kitten or a puppy? How about 10 orphans or your own child?

Posted by Reality Man | November 16, 2007 12:29 PM

Who would you rather kill, your wife or your mother if you had to? How about a kitten or a puppy? How about 10 orphans or your own child?

Reality Man, since these are situations that are remote from the real-world decisions of both presidents and plebes, one can be excused for declining to answer them.

But the need to make trade-offs between security and human rights is not some sort of outlandish and distantly hypothetical Sophie's Choice. It's a decision presidents have to make almost every day, on an ongoing basis.

And if someone like Barack Obama was running for some bizarre office where he was called upon every day to decide "the kitten or the puppy?", then it would indeed be legitimate to inquire whether he was a kitten man or a puppy man.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 16, 2007 12:43 PM

What pisses me of is, yeah Blitzer sucks, but who else did they have asking questions? A right wing shill and a woman married to a former Bushite, now a Romney operative. I mean really.

They could not find even one interviewer who is at least somewhat sympathetic to DEMOCRATS? This was a Democratic Primay Debate. Leave the republican questioners for Republican debates. This happens pretty much in every Democratic Debate; we get one big name blowhard and a bunch of people hostile to Democrats as questioners. They have no idea what Democratic voters wnat to know about our canddates, because they are looking through the wrong lens. We do not, for the most, give a shit about Republican issues.

Posted by apishapa | November 16, 2007 1:17 PM

The Yearly Kos debate comes to mind.

Posted by Robin Ozretich | November 16, 2007 1:56 PM

Yes, there appears to be more "gotcha questions" for the democrats. But most of it has to do with the leading democrats' fear of offending anyone. Questions only become difficult when what you want to say is hampered by public opinion, interest group opinion, or donor opinion.

If the dems would simply say what they believe, and then put it into a bigger context, it would work out better.

For example:
Would you nominate a SCJ who did not support Roe v. Wade? Good Dem answer: No, I would appoint justices in the mold of Brennan, and Thurgood Marshall; people who see the constitution as an evolving document that protects privacy, fights racial injustice, and is not restricted to a strict or historical meaning.

While I don’t deny that the Republicans seem to be getting off easier, much of it is because they are not afraid to support waterboarding, grant full citizenship to an embryo, or enact tough immigration reform. They don’t have to parse their answers because their answers are directed firmly at their base.

Basically, democrats need to adopt positions and defend them. Stop trying to please everyone, and by so doing, please no one. Be individuals. Have opinions. And for the love of God, stop giving me generic “well poll tested” answers to important questions.

Oh, and I think MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is pretty much as "inside the family" that the Dem's can get.

Posted by Humbleoberver | November 16, 2007 2:09 PM

Ideologically honest network or not (I would argue CNN's bias is as bad as FOX's and that MSNBC's Olbermann is every bit the ideologue that, say, Cavuto is), the Fox debates have been the best of the bunch--with the notable exception of Anderson Cooper's fantastic navigation of the CNN/YouTube debate. They've been professional, issue-oriented and relevant.

My only real objection with FOX was the dumb ticking-time-bomb question, but that has since been parroted by CNN and MSNBC, so it's hard to blame FOX when everyone else follows suit.

If I was president of CNN, I'd fire Blitzer for his performance at last night's debate.

Here's an idea: why doesn't either party have the crew at 60 minutes run a debate?

Posted by Shinyk | November 16, 2007 3:06 PM

"Reality Man, since these are situations that are remote from the real-world decisions of both presidents and plebes, one can be excused for declining to answer them."

C'mon in this political climate we are talking about ticking time bomb scenarios when someone brings up this question. Creating a torture infrastructure brings in the double whammy of making us less safe and violating human rights. Of course we can all think up scenarios where there is an obvious trade off, such as a nuke is about to go off and the terrorist's five-year-old daughter knows the password and won't talk. However, the correct answer to the "human rights vs. national security" question is "it depends." It's not really "yes or no" territory. I can probably think up a scenario where Obama would choose national security and Clinton would choose human rights and vice versa. Similarly, what does the President have to do with New York State drivers' licenses? Nothing. That isn't a good "yes or no" question. It's a stupid question.

Posted by Reality Man | November 16, 2007 3:34 PM

I thought Republicans were the ones who were supposed to whine about their treatment at the hands of the Mainstream Media. Every time someone publishes a list of the party affiliations of MSM political correspondents it's always 80% plus Democrats. It seems to be a stretch to believe that Wolf Blitzer & company have it in for Dems.

Posted by Fred | November 16, 2007 3:51 PM

Frankly, MY, I think this is the most intelligent thing I've heard anybody suggest in a very long time.

The primary debates are in-house debates, and the point should be to elucidate the candidates' positions and proposals, the pros and cons, etc. In short, they should be somewhat more like any of the panel discussions one sees on C-SPAN all the time, where you get a group of intelligent people who have different points of view in one room, and get them to present their points of view dialogically.

The moderator's job at such an event is to facilitate discussion and promote clarity about what the participants support; not to try to pin the participants to positions they don't support by springing an interrogative trap.

It's a bloody good idea.

Posted by urbino | November 16, 2007 3:57 PM

Wolf Blitzer let Hillary land blows without response. The first question Hillary got from Campbell Brown was about the “politics of parsing,” a phrase that John Edwards has used. Clinton filibustered.

Instead of exercising his moderator’s discretion to follow-up on Clinton, Wolf focused on Obama to get his reply. What reply is Obama supposed to have to a criticism of Hillary Clinton that John Edwards made and Hillary Clinton failed to respond to? (And who doesn’t know what “triangulation” means?)

There are two proper follow-ups in that situation: 1. Follow-up with Clinton to pin her down; or 2. Follow-up with Edwards about the “politics of parsing.”

Given a pass, Hillary then responded to Obama’s answer by mischaracterizing his health care plan. Obama responded to that mischaracterization. Hillary went again, distorting things just like her critics say she does. When Obama tried to respond to the direct attack, Wolf tried to shut him down and move on to Edwards. Kucinich says, “Hey, there’s a debate here.”

Dennis was right. Showing where the fault lines are is one thing. It is something else to ignore a real debate in real time that America needs to hear so you can to stick to your moderator’s script and centrist media frames. That’s disgusting.

Then Wolf moved to Edwards, who noted that Clinton obscures her positions, without mentioning health care. Wolf saw that as a personal attack on Clinton, so he gave Clinton time to respond. In her rebuttal, Clinton accused Edwards of slinging mud from the Republican playbook and then said -- because Edwards had brought up health care -- that Edwards wasn’t for universal health care in 2004. Get that? Edwards never mentioned health care. Unless Clinton is so old and stupid that she confused Barack Obama for John Edwards in the heat of the moment, she had a scripted attack on Edwards that she deployed too early. She didn’t “punch back”. She delivered a pre-written attack line at Wolf Blitzer’s prompting. Then, Wolf waved off John Edwards -- who had never raised the issue of health care and who had just been accused of slinging mud from the Republican playbook, a personal charge if ever there were one -- and directed a completely different question to Joe Biden. Huh?

Posted by Wolf Blitzer is a Jackass | November 16, 2007 4:19 PM

Then Wolf moved to Edwards, who noted that Clinton obscures her positions, without mentioning health care.

This paragraph brings up a fantastic point: Blitzer stacked the deck for Hillary.

Or at least it felt that way.

Whether Blitzer was overcompensating for Russert's obvious adversariality or acting as a vehicle for some behind-the-scenes bias is unclear. The inclusion of Carville as an unbiased analyst suggests the latter, as noted by Markos Moulitsas (the first smart, nondestructive observation I've ever seen from him).

Can you imagine FOX's Chris Wallace allowing Hillary to attack Edwards for attacking her on Health Care when he hadn't? Russert? Even Chris Matthews wouldn't let that stand.

Regarding Blitzer, there is a third possibility: he just doesn't know what's relevant and what's not. Anyone who's seen the Situation Room might be inclined to accept that.

Posted by Shinyk | November 16, 2007 4:40 PM

How about Howard Dean as moderator and holding it on cspan. Cspan is neutral and really cool.
and Dean as head of the DNC would be totally appropriate and know bs from real and would focus on issues.

Posted by vwcat | November 16, 2007 9:43 PM

Jon Stewart for moderator!

But only if Stephen Colbert is not available! Stephen could do a Blitzer imitation but let the Dems knock his head off.

Better yet, let's demand Colbert moderate the GOP debates! A reprise of his Washington Press Corps dinner appearance would be welcome!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 16, 2007 11:46 PM

The biggest problem is too many on stage. If there isn't some winnowing process soon, we're going to be picking the leader of the free world by who said what about whom and how do you feel about that in your inner self... good grief.

That said, this was the absolute worst spectacle I've ever seen. Trying to pass this mess (technically and content) off as a debate is insulting.

Call it a throw down. Call it an event or a gathering...whatever...but debates don't allow audience or moderator participation AT ALL (let alone rephrasing questions to be *hotter*), there are certain rules to follow in timing, etc and points are given/docked if you sway off onto a stump speech rather than address the question.

Pure BS...

That said, I was glad to see Obama and Edwards hold their ground through all the tomato throwing. Those boys are trying to make a point that the questions are not phrased correctly if you're out to change the way government works.

I actually thought all of them did well...I even could bear the fingernails on the blackboard Clinton mess.

Posted by G Davis | November 17, 2007 2:58 AM

"Wolf, when you chew off a puppy's genitals, do you swallow them? Yes or no?"

"Well, I would never..."

"It's a yes or no question, Wolf. Do you swallow the puppy genitals or not?"

"That's an unfair and ridiculous question. I have never..."

"By your own bone-stupid standards, Wolfie, such questions are quite fair. So which is it, yes or no?"

"(head explodes)"

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | November 18, 2007 12:59 AM