American Beat: A Media Miss

Two of President George W. Bush's new campaign ads include footage from the destroyed World Trade Center. You probably haven't even seen these ads yet--in fact, you may never see them unless you watch cable news regularly or live in a battleground state and tune in to television shows that political consultants believe are widely watched by swing voters--but you've certainly heard the debate about them.

The issue of whether the president's new ads "politicize" the worst terror attack in our history consumed the media last week. But re-reading the way this "story" was covered by the media offers yet another example of how the media don't know how to cover a story.

"President Bush's first re-election commercials are drawing heat from Democrats, firefighters and some survivors of the September 11 terrorism attacks, who say the Republican president is using the tragedy for political gain," wrote the Cleveland Plain Dealer (similar wording was flashed on the front pages all over the country). Reading that opening sentence might trick you into thinking that an important news story was forthcoming--except that there's no news here at all. In fact, the article admits it right away: It's the president's commercials that are "drawing heat" rather than the president's leadership or lack thereof.

In one ad, the president says we are "safer" and "stronger." We may be, we may not be. But we're not even discussing that issue; instead, we're wasting valuable brain cells debating whether a clip of a destroyed building--or of firefighters carrying flag-draped remains--is too political. And that's why this opening salvo of the campaign has been such a victory for the forces of cynicism that run the president's campaign. They didn't create ads hoping to open a debate on the president's performance. They created ads hoping that a 1.5-second clip of a wrecked building would open a debate about the ads. That allows the president to appear above this substance-free fray. "How this administration handled that day, as well as the war on terror, is worthy of discussion,'' Bush said on Saturday. "And I look forward to the debate about who best to lead this country in the war on terror." He may indeed look forward to that debate, but it is precisely that debate that we will never have.

In the end, those 1.5 seconds may end up saving the president hours of time that he might otherwise be forced to spend actually defending the administration for the failures that led up to September 11--yes, lest we forget, President Bush was President Bush on 9/11--and for its policies afterwards.

Nothing new here, of course. Last year, the president floated a new policy that would allow millions of illegal aliens to work legally, but we never even got a debate about the proposal before it got bogged down under charges that the president was merely "courting the Hispanic vote" or giving a "payback" to cheap-labor-addicted "Big Business." And then the president was able to go around the country and not talk about the proposal, but instead rail against the "special interests" who were trying to kill it.