Flowers of Banality

            Poinsettias took Issue 1
honors as Fox News Sunday , NBC's Meet the Press , CBS's Face
the Nation , CNN's Late Edition , ABC's This Week , and The
McLaughlin Group displayed festive Euphorbia pulcherrima on their
sets. None of the pundits spoke about the flowers, which are members of the
spurge family and native to Mexico and Central America. The flowers spoke for
themselves.

            Attempts
to elevate the International Monetary Fund's $55-billion (and climbing) bailout
of South Korea to Issue 2 fizzled despite the attempts of three shows-- Fox
News Sunday , NewsHour With Jim Lehrer , and This Week-- to put
it there. 
                  Slate
                columnist Paul Krugman cemented the consensus
opinion that the known risk of lending the Koreans billions was far less scary
than the unknown risk of doing nothing ( This Week ).

            Besides flowers, the main theme of the weekend gabfests was
the Year in Review. The pundits happily recycled their hoariest 1997 sound
bites in a road-rage rampage of drive-by analysis. Their quick and dirty
targets: the balanced budget; the booming economy; the campaign-finance
scandal; the death of Diana, Princess of Wales; the stock market; Ellen ;
race; sex in the military; Asia's economic meltdown; China; Tony Blair; Bosnia;
Iraq; the menace of the tabloid press; Bill Clinton's good luck; Al Gore's
rotten luck; porn on the Internet; Microsoft; Dolly. The more formulaic shows
(CNN's Capital Gang , The McLaughlin Group , Fox News
Sunday ) offered predictions for 1998 and "awards" (Worst Politician,
Biggest Loser, Brightest New Face) to disguise their lack of enterprise, while
the more somber programs dodged hard work with toasts to their last 50 years
( Meet the Press ), their last 30 years ( Washington Week in
Review ), and their last year ( Face the Nation ).

            Issue 3
was the public's growing disdain for Washington and politics. As in previous
weeks, the two leading conservative commentarians celebrated political apathy
as an indication of "national health" (George Will, This Week ) and "a
sign of contentment and success of a society" (Charles Krauthammer, Inside
Washington ). Giving the conservative theme greater legitimacy were Gwen
Ifill ( Meet the Press ) and Mary McGrory ( Meet the Press ), who
attributed the new apathy to the new prosperity. "Dow Jones is more important
than Paula Jones," said McGrory.

            
Michael Beschloss ( Face the Nation )
linked Washington's lost vitality to the end of the imperial presidency, while
other Face the Nation yakkers (Bob Schieffer, Stephen Carter, and Ellen
Goodman) pinned it on politicians and the presidents who have failed to frame
our pressing problems (race, Social Security insolvency, women's issues) in
political terms. Doris Kearns Goodwin ( This Week ) cited Theodore
Roosevelt's conservation campaign and Lyndon B. Johnson's war on poverty during
a time of prosperity as examples of how a leader can mobilize the people with a
public challenge. Now, said Mark Shields ( Face the Nation ), we have a
president who endorses contradictory initiatives like teen curfew and
midnight basketball.

            
               L Is for Legacy: Gwen
Ifill double dribbled her observation that the L word currently haunting
Clinton is "legacy," not liberalism ( Washington Week in Review and
Meet the Press ).

            
               Say Something Twice, Why
Say It Again? Mark Shields triple dribbled his astonishment that a new
opinion poll will crown Clinton the most popular president ever
( NewsHour , Capital Gang , Face the Nation ).

            
               Go to the Mirror,
Boy: John McLaughlin designated fellow commentarian George Stephanopoulos
the year's "Most Boring Person" for his "predictable and platitudinous
commentary" on This Week .

            
               Tongue Bath of the
Week: Wrapping up Evans & Novak 's "interview" with Donald Trump,
serial flatterer Robert Novak offered this stroke job: "I was surprised [Trump]
showed a lot of charm, maybe even charisma."

            

               --Jack
Shafer