And to add insult to injury, Bush's spinners have been forced to defend the president's sighs and mannerisms -- things they were all too happy to blast Gore for in 2000.
By Monday, as the media's attention was shifting from the post-presidential debate analysis to previews of Tuesday's vice-presidential debate, it was clear not only that Bush had lost to Kerry but that his talk-show surrogates -- who had done little except play defense for three days -- had lost the battle to spin public reaction in their man's favor.
Of course, it took a media cycle or two for the Bush campaign to get past the initial denial phase and recognize that there was no spinning the president's stumbling performance into a perceived victory. In the immediate aftermath of the debate, the efforts to cast Bush's performance as something better than it was ranged from the desperate:
“I think the American people were able to see [the president's] heart and his strength. They were able to see in a very personal way what it's like to make these hard decisions of sending young men and women to fight in a war.” (Karen Hughes, MSNBC's Hardball, Sept. 30)to the simply delusional:
“I never saw the president this passionate or articulate or really on his game.” (Sean Hannity, FOX News' Hannity & Colmes, Sept. 30)But as it became increasingly apparent that the public believed Bush had been decisively beaten, Republican operatives began appearing on the news and talk shows to dismissively cede the debate to Kerry, and to suggest in the same breath that there was something sinister or effete about the Massachusetts senator's debating skills.
By 10:00 p.m. Friday, the talking points had been fully digested and were showing up all over the late news and talk shows. On CNN's Paula Zahn Now, Republican strategist Mike Murphy described Kerry's arguments variously as “snake oil,” “verbal card tricks,” and “verbal trickery.”
Over on FOX, virtue maven Bill Bennett set the tone:
“I think that Kerry won the debate and Bush won the argument. I know Kerry did a very good performance, the best I've seen him engage in… He was well briefed. He was well prepared and he went on attack. He sounded good; he looked pretty good. And he made it seem as if he was winning the points.” (Bill Bennett, Hannity & Colmes, Oct. 1)The reliable Sean Hannity leapt right in, missing no opportunity to denigrate Kerry by referring to him as a “little trained debate boy from Yale,” adding that “you learn how to debate in debating school in Yale.” (Apparently President Bush, who is also a Yale graduate, skipped those classes.)
The “Kerry won on style but lost on substance” meme spent the weekend circulating in tandem with another piece of Republican spin: that the president's constant repetition of stock phrases, his sighing, and his petulant smirking throughout the first contest are all actually a sign of his strength and seriousness.
The president's widely noted repetition of key phrases (“mixed messages,” “it's hard work”) was the subject of a most amusing flip-flop in the conservative analysis of the debate. Immediately after the candidates left the stage on Thursday, Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard joined FOX News anchor Brit Hume in actually mocking the president's repetitiveness. But by the following afternoon, Barnes had changed his tune: on the Standard's Web site, repetition was suddenly part of the Bush “mystique.”
“Bush's firm insistence on a few key points -- notably the need for resolve in Iraq -- and his repetition of these points, is likely to have appealed to them. Repetition is Bush's long suit,” Barnes wrote.
On many of the weekend talk shows, Republican operatives were confronted by a video montage of Bush's expressions of irritation and discomfort during the debate, helpfully assembled and distributed by the Democratic National Committee.
Asked whether the president's body language had hurt him in the debate, Republican National Committee communications director Jim Dyke may have stretched the farthest:
“You know, somebody called me the other morning and -- and said that they were appreciative of the expressions of the president's face. One, it showed that he was speaking from his heart and he was passionately engaged in this. And, two, what did they expect the president to do, to -- to laugh when -- when Senator Kerry evolved his positions, or made the accusations that he made? This president speaks clearly, and I think the -- the people appreciate that.” (Jim Dyke, NBC's Saturday Today, Oct. 2)By Sunday, commentators were still comparing the president's expressions to those of a man sucking lemons. And Bush-Cheney press secretary Scott Stanzel was trying hard to turn it all to lemonade:
Like millions of Americans the president was reacting to John Kerry railing against policies he previously supported. He was reacting to things like a global test. He was reacting to John Kerry attacking the coalition and calling it not genuine. I'm proud to work for a man who has the courage of his convictions, stands by them and wears his heart on his sleeves. (Scott Stanzel, CNN Inside Politics Sunday, Oct. 3)The thing to watch in the coming week is whether there is a rebound effect in the media's treatment of the second top-of-the-ticket debate. In one respect, Bush may have lowered expectations so significantly with his performance last week that he will look good by comparison. On the other hand, expectations may play against him, because the town-hall format of Friday's scheduled meeting is supposed to play to Bush's strength.
There is also the constant danger that the mainstream media, still overly sensitive to charges of liberal bias, will feel the need to balance a bad week for Bush by hammering of Kerry, regardless of the debate's actual result.
In fact, this process may have already begun. Despite the media coverage of the debate generally mirroring the public reaction in the polls, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz has called for some self-examination:
“[W]hat about this near-unanimous verdict and those quickie network polls? Are journalists trying to create some kind of Kerry bandwagon? In recent weeks, many in the press have hinted, implied, or suggested that the Kerry campaign was sinking like a stone. Have things really changed that dramatically, or is this just plain old pack journalism?” (Howard Kurtz, CNN's Reliable Sources, Oct. 3)and:
“[D]oes this media verdict have anything to do with maybe reporters being closet liberals or even rooting for a closer race?” (Howard Kurtz, CNN's Reliable Sources, Oct. 3)Will the mainstream media continue to report debate results that roughly track public perceptions? Or will they once again seek to avoid the charge of liberal bias by overcompensating with right-wing spin? Stay tuned.
Rob Garver is a journalist who lives in Springfield, Virginia.
