At the sound of the tone ... Reaction is available from a variety of quarters to yesterday's Dem debate—Fact-esque, watching Elisabeth Bumiller, offers a generously excerpted discussion of the show, and Wonkette has a briefer but sharper account of "the worst debate performance since Nixon sweated through his makeup" (she's talking about Bumiller, not any of the candidates). I don't usually watch debates, even the big general-election ones, because basically I've yet to see a candidates debate that wasn't just a lot of useless hoo-ha (to use a sophisticated critical term), so there's not much I can say directly on point.

But if anything substantial was on offer in the debate, you wouldn't know it from reading the Times. Two whole reporters—Robin Toner on the news side, Adam Nagourney on news analysis—are on the case, and neither of them can find a damn thing to say except that the debate was "feisty" and that there were "sharp exchanges" between Kerry and Edwards. That's Toner's lead:

Two days before the biggest round of Democratic primaries and caucuses this year, Senator John Edwards repeatedly challenged the party's front-runner, Senator John Kerry, on a variety of fronts yesterday in the most contentious Democratic debate in months;

and it's the center of Nagourney's piece, in which he reveals his "analytic" ability to read John Kerry's emotional state:

At first, Mr. Kerry smiled and shrugged off [Edwards'] attacks. They seemed in keeping with a debate that often verged on chaos, with questioners and candidates alike struggling for their moment on television. ... But by the end of the hour, Mr. Kerry could barely hide his irritation at Mr. Edwards, and relations between them seemed chilly as they said goodbye and headed out of the studio.

Nagourney seems to find this state of affairs worrying; presumably it undercuts his preferred script for the remainder of the Democratic nomination process:

Before this weekend, Mr. Edwards had managed to walk a delicate line of being a credible and respected candidate, even as he lost contest after contest. He was able to accomplish that as he displayed his considerable skills as a campaigner.

Mr. Edwards presented himself as a high-road candidate who was seeking to change the political dialogue by running an upbeat campaign, saving most of his attacks for Mr. Bush and helping the Democrats form a unified front against the Republicans.

If Mr. Edwards wants his party's vice presidential nomination — he said vigorously on Sunday that he did not, though those kind of assertions tend to be forgotten come convention time — the tenor of his attacks could make him a less attractive running-mate.

There's nothing Adam Nagourney likes to worry about more than "tenor," or "tone," at least when it comes to Democrats. Is Edwards going to turn out to be a divider, not a uniter? And what can he be thinking, actually challenging the frontrunner in a debate? A political analyst as astute as Adam Nagourney knows, of course, that Presidential nominees only ever pick running mates they like a lot personally, and who have never criticized them.

And while we're on the subject of tone, let's not forget Robin Tone-r. (OK, I had to do that.) Witness this lovely graf, which comes right after Toner admits that, yes, Kerry and Edwards found themselves in agreement rather often during the debate:

Still, the overall tone ... was a shift from weeks of relative civility in the Democratic field. And the other two candidates in the race, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, pushed themselves into the fray, resisting any effort by the panel of questioners to focus the debate on Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards.

"Civility" is a word, much promoted of late by the disinterested likes of David Brooks, that's intended to be hard-wired to the "off" switch in reporters' brains, and it does its job here. Not only are we supposed to believe that candidates criticizing each other in debate is some kind of breach of civility—instead of, you know, being the reason you have debates in the first place—Toner doesn't give us even a moment to get a fix on that idiocy before suggesting that Sharpton and Kucinich were being "pushy" and thus by implication demonstrating incivility themselves. "Resisting any effort to focus the debate," that just sounds so unreasonable, so ...childish, doesn't it?

If Sharpton and Kucinich—particularly Sharpton, who gets in a few pretty good licks in his exchange with Bumiller—have to throw a couple of elbows to actually speak in a debate to which they were invited, and which they hope will win them votes: is that uncivil or indecorous behavior on their part? Or is it an artifact of the extraordinary, persistent disrespect that journalist debate moderators have shown Democratic candidates (major and minor) throughout the primary season? Shall we mention Larry "That's socialism!" King's recent performance, or Ted "Show of hands" Koppel's before him? But read Toner's report: you'd barely know there were any questioners present at this thing, much less that their behavior might be at issue. She's not writing a media story, after all.

posted by michael  6:59:51 PM  
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