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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Legal Affairs: Smearing Linda Chavez—The Poison of Partisan Thinking (January 25, 2001) Some of Chavez's critics would have beatified Hillary Clinton had she done the exact same thing. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: Israel's Unappealing Choices (January 25, 2001) Polls show many voters would rather choose between two men who aren't running. By William Schneider Social Studies: How to Build A Better Cigarette—And How to Snuff It Out (January 19, 2001) Guess who wins when a few self-dealing interests repair to back rooms and do the country a favor. By Jonathan Rauch Legal Affairs: A Character Assassin Should Not Be Attorney General (January 19, 2001) John Ashcroft smeared Judge Ronnie White for his own partisan, political purposes. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Media: Seven Rules of Inaugural Coverage (January 19, 2001) When a President is inaugurated, a funny thing happens to most media people. They turn soft and gooey. They act a lot like Larry King. By William Powers Political Pulse: A Cabinet That Can Make Wheels Turn (January 19, 2001) President-elect Bush is reviving the idea of a "management team" for the federal government. By William Schneider More from National Journal. |
Media 
The Dynamics of Personal DestructionWe just love precedents, and the Ashcroft hostilities sure look like the Guinier hostilities of eight years ago by William Powers ..... Lani Guinier is back. Media outfits of all stripes have been mentioning her, from NPR to Fox News. We just love precedents, and the Ashcroft hostilities sure look like the Guinier hostilities of eight years ago. More broadly, the media have framed the nomination of ex-Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., as the latest installment in a long cultural drama that goes back to Robert Bork. After Bork, there was Clarence Thomas, then Guinier, and now Ashcroft. It's the same war; the players just reverse roles occasionally. This is a convenient way of sizing up these events, and not incorrect as far as it goes. But there's an essential difference in the way these bear-pit bouts unfold, depending on which party is in power. It's a subtle distinction, but it reveals a lot about how the process really works. When the President is Republican, the attacks on a nominee are led by interest groups. Thus, just hours after George W. Bush announced his choice for Attorney General, the Associated Press reported that the president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, Kate Michelman, had called Ashcroft "a real danger to women's rights" and said her group would oppose him "very strongly." The next morning, The New York Times reported that liberal groups "would work relentlessly to defeat him in the Senate." In the weeks since, the leaders of these groups—People for the American Way, the National Organization for Women, the Sierra Club, the Human Rights Campaign, and many others—have been at the front lines of the anti-Ashcroft forces. Early this week, the day before his Senate confirmation hearings got under way, Time magazine reported that "the devoutly evangelical Ashcroft is primed for what looks like an epic, front-page battle with liberal groups." When the nominating President is a Democrat, however, the attack is led not by the interest groups that oppose the nominee, but by a subgroup of the media itself: conservative pundits. The morning after Clinton nominated Guinier to be assistant attorney general for civil rights, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece by Clint Bolick headlined "Clinton's Quota Queens." With that single piece—which was aided greatly by its memorable headline—the unraveling began. Throughout the Guinier controversy, editorialists and pundits set the agenda, with conservative interest groups playing backup. When it was over and Guinier was history, Clinton, according to The New York Times, blamed the disaster on "a campaign of right-wing distortion and vilification" in the media. He specifically cited Bolick's op-ed. Since Bolick helps run an advocacy group called Institute for Justice, one could argue that interest groups led the Guinier fight, too. But Bolick got things rolling not by calling a press conference, putting out news releases, and waiting for reporters to phone—as the liberal groups tend to do when they're fighting a nominee. He did it on a major newspaper's editorial page. And conservative media types such as Ben Wattenberg (who called Guinier "the czarina of czeparatism") remained out front to the end. Why does this matter? Because the media play a central role in all nomination battles. We orchestrate them, giving prominent display to all embarrassing revelations, and egging on the various parties. (After all, conflict is the essence of news; it's what keeps people reading and watching.) To understand how such events transpire, it helps to know the M.O. of the conductor, which is us. Broadly speaking, it's true that our trade has liberal political leanings. But the subclass of journalists who practice punditry is heavily conservative. I don't know if there are actually more conservative pundits than liberal ones—counting by ideology is tricky—but it certainly feels that way. There's no question that conservative commentators are, as a group, more prominent. There is no liberal analogue to Rush Limbaugh, or to The Wall Street Journal editorial page. The New York Times' editorial page is powerful, but when it comes to advocating liberal positions, it simply doesn't pack the punch The Journal does. The reason for this pundit gap is pretty obvious. Although they're now part of the establishment, conservative pundits still act like members of a beleaguered resistance, like the tokens they used to be. They hold their views zealously, and express them in the most unabashed, defiant fashion. This lends their work verve and resonance, and draws an audience. In contrast, most liberal media people are relatively sheepish about their own politics, and their punditry tends to be hedged, defensive, and a lot less memorable. When the Administration is Democratic, and a vulnerable nominee appears, the opposition pundits hold sway. Their passion gives the story lift. But when the White House is Republican, the liberal groups grab the starring role, because they are the unblushing warriors that a hot nominee story requires. And because these liberals aren't media people, we can plausibly argue that our own biases aren't driving the story. Best of all, once they've got someone like Ashcroft in their jaws, the activist groups never let go. Journalistically speaking, we couldn't ask for more than that.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Powers is media columnist for National Journal. He recently spent three months in Japan as a Japan Society Fellow, studying the role of reading in Japanese life. This column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. |
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