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Friday, January 28, 2000 Page: 10A
You hate us. You really hate us. Don’t you?
The media, we mean. Asking embarrassing questions. Prying into private
lives. Revealing all the sordid details.
Did Hillary Clinton break her marriage vows? How would anti-abortion John
McCain react if his 15-year-old daughter were pregnant? When was the last time
Al Gore smoked marijuana?
Each of those obtrusive questions has been raised by reporters in the past
several weeks.
So go ahead, put all the blame on us. But a more reflective assessment
might reveal that the politicians themselves, and the voters, are just as
responsible for the increasingly personal style of political coverage.
From McCain’s frequent references to his service in Vietnam to Al Gore’s
recurring allusions to the cancer death of his sister, the modern pitch for
votes is made as much on personal grounds as on policy ones.
Voters in our confessional culture, accustomed to seeing the famous bare
their souls for Barbara Walters and the commonest folk do the same for Jerry
Springer, often make their choices based on a mix of the candidate’s history,
politics and personality. They care about George W.’s party-animal past, Bill
Bradley’s fluttering heart and Bill Clinton’s wandering eye.
And sometimes the personal and political intersect. If John McCain
advocates an abortion policy that could theoretically affect the personal life
of every American, is it not fair to ask what effect that policy could have on
his own? If Bush, as governor of Texas, signed legislation that stiffened
penalties for recreational drug users, is his own past drug use fair game?
Surely, some media outlets and reporters go over the line. The questioning
of Hillary Clinton’s fidelity has more to do with prurience than politics.
Conversely, the questions surrounding her husband’s extramarital activities
were germane to a lawsuit, a perjury case and impeachment.
There are times when personal questions are appropriate, even essential.
Few Americans would want to return to the days when the press would
willingly censor pictures of FDR in his wheelchair.
Today’s news media are much more independent. And today’s politicians are
more willing to trade on their personal stories, or personal mythologies, to
win votes. One can imagine a modern presidential candidate in FDR’s position
procuring a 30-minute film on his battle with polio to be shown at the
national convention.
As long as presidential candidates campaign on their biographies in
addition to their policies, the media, and the voters, have a right to check
the crucial facts of their life stories.