Slate’s Avi Zenilman noted the other day that legendary Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee once lamented, “Even the very best newspapers have never learned how to handle public figures who lie with a straight face.”
Fortunately, the Post came very close to figuring it out in a front-page stunner yesterday.
Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei wrote the best news story of the campaign cycle thus far, reviewing Bush’s and Kerry’s TV ads and drawing an important conclusion. After noting a litany of attacks against the Dem nominee, Milbank and VandeHei had the courage to tell readers what they need to know: Bush is lying.
The charges [levied by Bush] were all tough, serious — and wrong, or at least highly misleading…. Bush has outdone Kerry in the number of untruths, in part because Bush has leveled so many specific charges (and Kerry has such a lengthy voting record), but also because Kerry has learned from the troubles caused by Al Gore’s misstatements in 2000. “The balance of misleading claims tips to Bush,” Jamieson said, “in part because the Kerry team has been more careful.”
At this point, every blogger with electricity has highlighted this story, but there were a few points to this article I nevertheless I wanted to point out.
First, it’s a near-perfect example of my ongoing fascination with those rare journalists who dare to draw conclusions. Milbank obviously gets it and VandeHei is getting better all the time. I can only hope other journalists are learning from their courage.
There’s simply nothing wrong with news reports stating objective truths. If Bush’s campaign has launched an unprecedented attack against Kerry with deceptive ads making false claims, the Post should tell readers about it. That’s not bias; that’s quality journalism.
Second, even I was surprised to see just how negative Bush has gone so early in the campaign cycle.
Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush’s campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads — or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.
So, Bush’s negative ads are triple the number of Kerry’s, both in total numbers and as a percentage. Milbank and VandeHei are right to call this “unprecedented.” Incumbents, with so many months to go before the election, have never felt it necessary to be so negative so often.
“There is more attack now on the Bush side against Kerry than you’ve historically had in the general-election period against either candidate,” said University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an authority on political communication. “This is a very high level of attack, particularly for an incumbent.”
Brown University professor Darrell West, author of a book on political advertising, said Bush’s level of negative advertising is already higher than the levels reached in the 2000, 1996 and 1992 campaigns. And because campaigns typically become more negative as the election nears, “I’m anticipating it’s going to be the most negative campaign ever,” eclipsing 1988, West said. “If you compare the early stage of campaigns, virtually none of the early ads were negative, even in ’88.”
It’s “shock and awe” campaign-style. Overwhelm the opponent with fierce and blistering attacks, all at once, causing immediate destruction before he can regain his footing. It’s success in Iraq in March 2003 was dubious; it’s failure domestically is more obvious.
And finally, the key point is what drives Bush’s hyper-negative campaign in the first place: a lack of options.
Going over every TV and radio ad launched by the Bush campaign, even the spots that don’t mention Kerry, one can’t help but notice that they are eerily silent on Bush’s accomplishments. Traditionally at this point in a presidential campaign, the incumbent wants to remind voters of his successes. Bush is implicitly telling the nation that he can’t think of any achievements, so the campaign has to center around attacks against Kerry.
As Tom Schaller noted yesterday:
I mean, what can Bush say? He can’t talk about the deficits; or the costs of his Medicare prescription bill; or his flip-flop on steel tariffs; or his giant unfunded education mandate, NCLB; or his defense of agribusines subsidies; or his caving on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (the language of the GOP bill now permits civil unions which, save for needless constitutional tinkering, is basically the same policy position as most of Dems04 candidates). And so on.
[…]
So what’s left? John Kerry: Evil-doer. To invert the Beatles’ mantra from four decades ago, the Bushies prove that “all you need is hate.”
This from the president who recently told the nation:
“I don’t speak ill of anybody in the process here. I think if you went back and looked at my comments, you’ll see I don’t attack.”
I guess this pledge is no longer “operative.”