The Punditry Crisis
I first realized something
was terribly, terribly wrong when a Fox News producer called me yesterday. She
wanted me to opine about the scandal on Sunday, when the cable news channel
will do a Flytrap marathon in anticipation of the president's testimony. Her
call was fishy for two reasons: 1) I am not usually first, or second, or last
on any TV booker's guest list; and 2) she said the following to me,
imploringly: "We're really looking for something different. Can you be
different?"
(Well, I thought to myself,
of course I can be different. My mother always told me I was "different.")
The
pursuit of wretched excess in Flytrap--a pursuit in which
Slate
has eagerly participated--is producing some unfortunate results. One, which I
wrote about last week, is the rising popularity of preposterous conspiracy
theories. The Punditry Crisis is another. Not since the late-O.J. era has
America faced such an alarming moment. Is there anything left to say?
The crisis is, at bottom, a market failure. Ratings
demonstrate that TV viewers (never mind their protestations) want to hear about
Flytrap all the time. The gross appetites of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox must be sated.
Crossfire must have fire. Hardball must be hard. Face the
Nation must have someone to face. But there's not enough supply to meet the
demand. As Aug. 17 approaches, Flytrap is in an information blackout. The White
House is silent, and Starr's office has stopped leaking. Every hypothesis has
been hypothesized. Every theory theorized. Every spin spun. Each tiny nugget of
new information is chewed, swallowed, regurgitated as cud, and chewed again.
Pundits are reduced to flogging thirdhand and fourthhand rumors. Can any TV
watcher endure another Jonathan Turley sermon or Lanny Davis "wait and see" or
Laura Ingraham huff?
Too much
demand, too little supply. TV producers are on a desperate, futile quest for
someone--or something--different to put on the air. (This crisis is not, of
course, limited to television: Those of us in the print and e-media are
thrashing through the same news vacuum.)
"Ireally don't know what pundits will do. We
have six days to fill. And there's nothing," warns Time 's Margaret
Carlson. "If I had even one new fact, I would lock it in a vault until I could
use it [in a column or on television]. If I had even one new observation, I
would not breathe a word about it until I could use it. One piece of real news
would eat all this [blather] up like kudzu."
Not every pundit is worrying
about the crisis. Some Panglossian commentators claim there is no crisis at
all. One compares Flytrap to World War I trench battles: "No one is getting
overrun, but steady progress is being made." In fact, he says, plenty of
fascinating new details emerge every day. (When asked for an example of such a
detail, he suggests, halfheartedly, "what Monica ate for lunch.") And for
freshly minted Flytrap pundits such as Turley, there is no crisis, either. This
is their moment. No topic is so stale that it cannot be reheated: After all, it
gets you air time. And besides, say the Panglossians, no matter how much
Flytrap nothing is being spewed, think how much worse it would be if there were
no scandal at all. At least it's something to talk about.
But should we simply relax
and let the Punditry Crisis grow into a catastrophe? Right-thinking people can
agree: We should not. Stuart Taylor Jr., in a moment of high-minded optimism,
proposes that pundits take advantage of the information vacuum to talk about
first principles. Instead of jabbing fingers over Monica's dress, for example,
they should discuss the fundamentals of sexual harassment law. I'm not sure
Taylor's worthy solution is possible but, whether it is or it isn't, I think we
can all concur that that the Punditry Crisis requires immediate action. Well,
maybe not action , but definitely a lot more talk.
More
Evidence That He Won't Do a Mea Culpa
One popular hypothesis about
Aug. 17 is the notion that Clinton won't admit/apologize because Hillary
Clinton won't let him. She refuses to let him humiliate her. Further support
for this theory comes from a profile of Hillary in today's Washington
Post . The Post rediscovered an astonishing 7-month-old quote from
the first lady. Everyone remembers that the first lady blamed Flytrap on a
"vast right-wing conspiracy" in a Today show interview during the first
days of the crisis. The Post reminds readers of what else she said
(Hillary's words are in italics):
"If a president were proved
to have had an adulterous liaison while in the White House, the American people
'should certainly be concerned about it ... if all that were proven true, I
think that would be a very serious offense. That is not going to be proven
true. I think we're going to find some other things. ' "
This is,
admittedly, just a single line from a long-ago interview, but it suggests that
the Clintons are locked into a denial. If Clinton admits an affair, how could
Hillary ever explain away this quote? Can the president do a mea culpa
knowing that the video of Hillary saying it "would be a very serious offense"
would be thrown back in his face again and again and again?
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