To those who’ve finally wanted to see it happen — it has happened: America’s political controversy culture which permeates the way politics is packaged in much broadcast and old and new media, and influences the country’s tone of discussion has finally gotten spanked…by none other than former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
They two former President were reportedly unhappy about the way their up-till-now-upcoming joint appearances were being built up — as if it would a kind of clash-filled debate of the 21st century, with implications that perhaps it’d look like a segment off a cable TV show where talking heads yell and attack each other personally as much as they do each other’s ideas. So, as the owner of a casino that just closed told the guy who showed up at his door: “No dice…” The LA Times:
Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on Saturday abruptly pulled out of a joint appearance scheduled for this winter in Los Angeles after growing unhappy with the way the event was being promoted.
Earlier this week, the two called off an upcoming appearance in New York City.
“We canceled the event because of a violation of contract and a promoter who insisted on billing it as something it wasn’t,” said Matt McKenna, a spokesman for Clinton. David Sherzer, a spokesman for Bush, confirmed the event was off.
McKenna said the forum was never intended to be a clash between the 42nd and 43rd presidents — “the hottest ticket in political history,” a news released called it — but rather a moderated panel discussion.
“It’s unfortunate that an overeager promoter ruined the opportunity to hear a serious discussion of the issues between two former presidents who have a great deal of respect for each other,” he said.
May I use the word I never use? “Ditto?”
To those who stay away from TV for a while or make a vow not to listen to radio talk for a while, it is truly jarring when you go back to it to see the way an entire political and media culture has grown up around the idea of confrontation. You see it many times when two guests — always picked so they are completely opposed in viewpoints (not usually a moderate or a centrist if it’s a political talk show) get angry and yell over each other or start to what in more innocent times was called “lose it”. The host then gets a kind of smary, smug, the-cat-just-ate-the-canary look as he thanks the guests.
If someone walks off a show or a host turns off a guest’s mike — it’s even better. You can almost see the expression on the host’s face later: “Man, this was good! This’ll really make them want to come back for more!”
It’s most notable that in 21st century America, some media types that started of more moderate later because more strident when they got national microphones and inched away from the center. Why? Because that does help build an audience turning a potentially dreary issue-oriented political discussion into an emotion-packed experience where each side roots for their favorite professional wrestler partisan talking head.
Passion, anger and resentment increasing trump those dry borrrrrrrrrrrrrrring policy discussions as well as the idea that is is possible to talk (or write) about politics by first taking a deep breath, and that you can discuss an issue without trying to demonize or define the other side. Confrontation gets ratings and builds new and old media readership.
The operative words in this story are the words “serious discussion.”
Couldn’t Clinton and the son of his best bud former President George HW Bush possibly talk about issues without it being a “clash” with the two of them turning red faced (Clinton did enough of that talking about Barack Obama during the campaign) or foaming at the mouth (Bush had Dick Cheney to do that for him)?
In the end, the two former prezes seemingly decided they did not want to be packaged as the equivilent of warring left and right talk show guests.
Which shows there are still some things beneath the dignity of the American presidency..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.