Now that the presidential debates have been finalized, it might be worthwhile to remind the moderators (Lehrer, Brokaw, Schieffer) that they need to do a little bit more than toss up conservative softballs like Rick Warren. (Indeed, thinking back on the Faith Forum, Warren looked a whole lot more like an overweight softball pitcher, beer in hand, gently leaning forward to underhand those babies McCain's way, than he did like a serious interviewer.)
I thought it might be useful to look back at Tim Russert's series of one-on-one interviews conducted with the candidates in the pre-primary season.
Russert's interview of Giuliani was very telling, I thought. It basically ended Giuliani's campaign. Russert simply did a run down of everything about Giuliani that people found troubling -- and forced Giuliani to say a lot of things he probably didn't want to say. Giuliani's fifth place finish in Iowa. Underperforming in New Hampshire and South Carolina (Giuliani begging him to go on to Florida...). Hitting him on Iran (the report being that Iran's weapons program was underdeveloped, so why consider striking them preemptively?). Slamming his connection with Podhoretz ("Do you believe that, like Norman Podhoretz, that we should bomb Iran as soon as logistically possible?"). Pounding him hard on his assertions on 9/11 (G: "I wasn’t very aware of it before September 11th. I, I knew about it in general.") Criticizing him for quitting the Iraq Study Group. His ongoing business dealings with Qatar (R: "Why would you do business with people who helped Khalid Sheikh Mohammad?"). His law firm's association with Hugo Chavez (R: "People are calling into question your judgment."). His relationship with Bernie Kerik (G: "I should have figured it out, and I’ve learned from it and will not make that mistake in the future."). The security scandal regarding Judith Nathan (G: "Well, this is — let, let me explain because it has something to — it all has to do with me.") And pinning him down on homosexuality (G: "It’s the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the—not the orientation that they have.")
There's quite a contrast with McCain. In Rick Warren's slow pitch game, McCain handled the question of his marriage with a somber vague reference to moral failing, but didn't have to get specific or graphic. Would Russert be so shy? As it happened, McCain's interview came last, two days before the New Hampshire primary. People had pretty much given McCain up for dead.
He flirts with McCain for a while, asks him whether his previous comments mean he's denouncing Bush (M: "Well, it’s certainly a criticism, but I also have pointed out, as I did last night in the debate, we’ve not had another attack on the United States of America."). He criticizes McCain for saying we should not give tax breaks to the wealthy, and then voting for Bush tax cuts -- after voting against them twice. He pins him down on amnesty for illegal immigrants, and gets McCain to make outrageous claims about deporting lawbreakers (M: "You, you round them up and you find them. And you also..." R: "Two million people, though?") Then, disappointingly, Russert turns the conversation to Romney, and they play footsie for a while on whether Romney's a good guy...and Russert lets McCain attack Romney for a bit. Then, unfortunately, Russert offers McCain another softball on going after bin Laden (M, only interesting in retrospect: "Musharraf and I have an, a relationship that goes back a number of years....So I would be able to work with him, and, and, and I — as I have in the past."). He presses McCain on the 100 years quote, but it gets deflected when McCain asserts that it's not the presence that bothers him, but the casualties. Ditto with the vote to authorize the war -- McCain equivocates with a distinction between the decision to go, and the handling afterward (notably, Russert does not press McCain on his characterization of how Americans would be received, so McCain has no culpability for the "handling," though he should). Then, again, Russert goes back to Romney, and lets McCain attack him on foreign policy. Finally, he asks McCain if it's make or break in New Hampshire -- and it might have been more break than make had we had an interview of the kind Russert conducted with Giuliani just a couple weeks before.
It's curious that Russert decided to go light on McCain at such a crucial time. He'd been much tougher in the past, as when he used McCain's own words on Somalia against him -- and McCain appeared not to recognize his own quote. So what gives? Did Russert just think McCain was on his last legs? Did Russert prefer McCain to Romney? It's not clear, but what is clear is that Giuliani was made to answer lots and lots of personal questions that were not presented to McCain, even though McCain has the same kind of baggage.
If it was appropriate to ask Giuliani those questions, then it should okay to ask McCain about the details of his having cheated on his wife, about the Keating scandal, about championing campaign finance reform for years only to abandon it when it counted, and about having written that he had no plan for America just an ambition to be president. And on and on and on...with all the myriad scandals that are documented here daily.
If Russert really was the standard of political interviews, then Lehrer, Brokaw, and Schieffert should look to his interview of Giuliani and not his interview with McCain to find their strategy for the debates. As has been documented elsewhere, McCain tends to slip through the cracks, and the same standard that is applied to other candidates needs to be applied to him if journalists are to claim any kind of objectivity.
For the record: Russert's interview with Obama goes as follows. Russert questions his experience and judgment as compared to Clinton (R: "Can you compete with that?"). He pressures him with quotations on Social Security whose validity Obama challenges. Goads him into saying he'll raise taxes for some. Repeatedly encourages him to attack Clinton (R: '"Talking and acting and voting like George Bush Republicans."' Who’s that?). Quotes from his own previous interview with Obama -- which Obama notices. Challenges his leadership on ending the Iraq war (R: "Where was the leadership?") Asks leading questions about communicating with foreign leaders ("You’re not afraid of being used in a propaganda way?"). Calls attention to amount of lobbying money Obama has received. Criticizes him for not having a published schedule for his time as a state senator (Obama reminds him that as a state senator he kept his own schedule). Attacks on Rezko ("Is he still your friend?"). And, as with McCain, tries to pin Obama down on a must-win in Iowa.
The presidential moderators in the coming months need to be sure they're applying the same standard to McCain that has, to this point, been applied to Obama.