Gore Mellows
Editor's note : Jacob Weisberg has filed a report from
Thursday's debate among the GOP presidential candidates. Click here to read
it.
DURHAM, N.H--A good night for Al Gore. His progress in this, the fifth
Democratic debate, was finally arriving at a reasonable tone. As in the
previous encounters, Gore was highly critical of his rival. But this time he
was able to be critical of Bill Bradley without coming off as smarmy or
hectoring. Gore made all his familiar criticisms--that Bradley wasn't putting
any money aside for Medicare, that his health-care plan wouldn't cover
everybody, and that when the going got tough in the Senate, Bradley got going.
But absent was about 80 percent of the sense of artificiality that
characterized Gore's earlier performances. Gore dispensed with the vocalized
sighs and weary head-shakings of the Meet the Press
debate. This meant that you could listen to what he was saying without
having to spend the whole time disliking him.
Gore also included one new attack on Bradley that was very much on point. He
finally took the advice of "Kausfiles" and nailed Bradley for opposing welfare reform in 1996.
Given the opportunity to ask Bradley a direct question, Gore asked whether his
opponent thought he made a mistake on three big votes in the Senate--in favor
of the Reagan budget cuts, against the use of force resolution the Gulf War,
and against welfare reform. Bradley responded with a stream of gobbledygook,
the thrust of which was that he stood by his decisions and would do the same
again, even with the benefit of hindsight.
"I think all three of them were a mistake," Gore responded, neatly
underscoring the lameness of Bradley's answer. "I think that people were
trapped in the old welfare system. ... Saddam Hussein would still be in Kuwait
if we had tried to rely on sanctions. Those budget cuts from Ronald Reagan hurt
New Hampshire."
Peter Jennings, who was a somewhat off-key moderator throughout the event,
then asked a pointless thumbsucker of a follow-up: "How large a mistake is a
president allowed to make?" The occasion not being a seminar at the Kennedy
School, both candidates wisely ignored him. Jennings' other moment of weirdness
was asking Bradley "what you really thought when Gore held out his hand" in the
last debate--as if he was hosting some kind of debate post-game show rather
than the debate itself. Infinitely less adept at stoking an argument than Tim
Russert, Jennings kept trying to get the candidates to repeat highlights from
their previous session. But perhaps because arguing offends his sense of
politeness, he kept trying to change the subject when they did start scrapping.
Perhaps Jennings was confused about how to handle a broadcast that didn't
involve any costume changes.
His pathetic answer on welfare aside, Bradley turned in a strong performance
as well. Substantively, I thought his best moment was his question to Gore
about why the vice president wouldn't join him in supporting the registration
and licensing of all handguns. Gore's lame response was that "it doesn't have a
prayer of ever becoming law." Bradley then delivered a lecture on what it means
to be a leader. "Where would the country be today if Franklin Roosevelt said
Social Security's too difficult to do? Of if Lyndon Johnson said Medicaid's too
difficult to do? The essence of leadership is taking something that is
difficult and making it possible because you engage the American people in an
attempt to make it happen."
Bradley's other best riff came after Gore asked him again why he hadn't put
money aside for Medicare. After explaining that continued strong economic
growth might vaporize the problem, Bradley tried to cast Gore as a small-minded
inside-the-Beltway character for dwelling on the point. "When I hear you talk,
Al, it reminds me of a Washington bunker. I think you're in the Washington
bunker. ... The Democratic Party shouldn't be in the Washington bunker with
you."
Canned as it probably was, this was a wicked sound bite. It would have been
more effective, though, if Gore had been badgering Bradley the way he has in
previous debates. But for the first time, Gore wasn't the clear aggressor--and
Bradley wasn't clearly the aggrieved.
