Issue 1 is the Democratic presidential debates–both Friday night’s face-off on ABC’s Nightline and Sunday morning’s joint appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. Issue 2 is the GOP race–including George W. Bush’s remark in a debate last week that Christ “changed [his] heart” and a new poll friendly to John McCain.
Sitting inches apart on Meet the Press, Bill Bradley and Al Gore carry on the most spirited back-and-forth of the presidential campaign. Unlike most debates, however, this one has a hands-on-moderator in Tim Russert, who peppers the candidates with his special brand of heavy-hitting, pinpoint-accurate questions. Russert is especially tough on the entitlement issue: He shows both candidates a government report, signed by three Clinton Cabinet secretaries, which concludes that by 2035 politicians will either have to raise taxes or cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. But neither candidate will commit to doing either, despite Russert’s insistence that there is no free lunch. (Gore–wearing a dark blue blazer rather than his trademark “earth tones”–calls Russert’s notion “elite opinion” and then reasserts his commitment to the working man.)
Jumping on Bradley’s boat, Gore promises that he too will forgo soft money in the general election if John McCain is the Republican nominee. (Read about Bradley and McCain’s campaign-finance pledge in Slate’s “The Week/The Spin” and “Ballot Box.”) Gore also pledges to renounce all TV and radio advertising in the primary campaign if Bradley will go along and challenges the former senator to two debates per week as a substitute for the forgone ads. Bradley dismisses both proposals as “ridiculous.”
Late in the program Russert catches Gore flatfooted. Asked if he would “admit that in 1996 the Clinton-Gore fund-raising apparatus was overly aggressive, perhaps unethical,” Gore says:
I’m not going to use those words. I think, obviously, if we had to do it over again, the point is do you learn from your mistakes, and I certainly have. I strongly support–RUSSERT: What was the big mistake that was made, if you learned from it?GORE: Oh, I think, um, pushing the limits, um, all this was reviewed and, um, charges were brought. But I think it was a mistake nonetheless.
On CNN’s Late Edition (the only pundit show taped after Meet the Press), Susan Page opines that Gore’s campaign-finance ploy worked and Tucker Carlson says that Bradley looked haughty, but Steve Roberts thinks that Gore came across as he always does–like a nervous Nellie. On ABC’s This Week, Bill Kristol notes that in Friday’s Nightline debate, neither Democratic candidate mentioned the name of their party’s popular incumbent president, Bill Clinton. Many pundits agree that there are still few substantive differences between Bradley and Gore. Mike McCurry (This Week) calls the two candidates Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, while Margaret Carlson (CNN’s Capital Gang) says deciding which candidate to vote for is like “trying to choose between 1 percent or 2 percent milk.” (To read “Ballot Box” on both Democratic debates, click here; to read Chatterbox’s dissent, click here.)
The pundits ruminate on the appropriateness of George W.’s remark in his third presidential debate that his favorite political philosopher is “Christ, because he changed my heart.” Gloria Borger (PBS’s Washington Week in Review), Margaret Carlson, and Al Hunt (Capital Gang) think it unseemly to wear one’s religion on one’s sleeve, and Bill Kristol sees baby-boomer selfishness in Bush’s transformation of a political question into a personal one. But George F. Will (This Week) and William F. Buckley ( Fox News Sunday) see little wrong with a simple declaration of faith.
On Late Edition, Wolf Blitzer trots out Friday’s CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll indicating that if John McCain and Bill Bradley win some early primaries, Bush voters may switch to McCain, but Gore voters likely will not switch to Bradley. The poll also shows that campaign-finance reform is low on voters’ lists of election concerns; asked about this on Late Edition, McCain blames the wording of the questions. Paul Gigot and Mark Shields (both of PBS’s NewsHour With Jim Lehrer) say that the poll doesn’t matter: The campaign-finance issue is merely a prop for McCain’s better selling points–his biography and his character.
Et Cetera: In an interview on Late Edition, Ken Starr says that if he could do it over again, he would have used the independent counsel’s office as a bully pulpit, appearing on television to counter the White House’s spin doctors.
Being, Nothingness, and Peanuts
[Peanuts] is also a commentary on the culture. The recurring theme is too much and too little self-esteem. Lucy has too much, and Charlie Brown has too little. There is a kind of mild metaphysic involved. In one of the strips, one of the characters is jumping rope and says, “Suddenly it struck me that it all seemed futile.” Well, what doesn’t?–George F. Will, on the legacy of Charles Schulz’s cartoon strip (This Week)
Last Word
It immediately communicated a certain reverence, which is to be welcomed. But Christ was not a political philosopher, he was the source of philosophy, the source of goodness, the source of contemplation. So there is a formal objection to his being named as such.–William F. Buckley Jr., on George W. Bush’s remark that Christ had “changed [his] heart” (Fox News Sunday)
Now, if Jesus is a political thinker, I assume he’s for the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, blessed are the peacemakers. And I assume he’s pro-Earned Income Tax Credit, blessed are the poor.–Al Hunt, on the same topic (Capital Gang)
