CAP at the HBO Comedy Festival: Wag the Debate
The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Aspen (USCAF) and HBO joined forces with the Center for American Progress on February 12 to present a discussion entitled, Wag the Debate: What’s the Future of the Pundit? Our esteemed panel ran the gamut from political insiders to hip comedians and included Joe Lockhart, a former senior advisor to the Kerry Campaign, Eric Alterman, a media critic and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, comedian and Air America host Janeane Garofalo, comedian Sheryl Underwood, Laura Ingraham of “The Laura Ingraham Show” and Ben Karlin, the executive producer from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Adding to the melting pot of viewpoints was the panel moderator, Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman from Florida, who now hosts MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country.”
 With a huge number of Americans getting their daily dose of news from pundits like Bill O’Reilly or comedy shows like “The Daily Show,” this panel explored why Americans are flocking to this kind of news coverage. The panel explores just what makes “The Daily Show” and Fox News so hot, why Republicans are winning the cable news messaging wars, the difference between hard news and everything else, the power of punditry and the ramifications of Jon Stewart calling Tucker Carlson “a dick.”
The following is an edited transcript of the panel:
WAG THE DEBATE – WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF THE PUNDIT?
SCARBOROUGH : Eric, you started this study of punditry, and actually wrote a book about it. Can you give us a 90-second history of punditry?
ALTERMAN: Very quickly, you need punditry, as annoying as it can often be. There’s too much happening for people who have busy jobs and lives to make sense of it all, that’s what punditry’s for. It’s existed since about the 1920s, and it worked out reasonably well for most of that time. The people like Walter Lipman and James Reston really did help people understand the world.
Beginning around the late 1960s, television started to get into it. You had Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, sort of as prophets of this business, when Buckley said to Vidal, while they were covering the convention, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, “Listen, you queer, the only one who’s a Nazi here is you.” Actually, maybe that was Vidal, maybe it was the other way around. In any case ‘cause, you know, Buckley, queer – no. Anyway, I’m sure I’m getting somebody sued here. The upshot is that television eventually took over punditry, as it takes over almost everything. And what you ended up with, beginning say with “The McLaughlin Group,” and then with the explosion of cable TV, is that television values and entertainment values became dominant and made it much more difficult to discuss complex issues without – in anything but sitcom form. At the same time you had this explosion of conservative domination of the opinion media.
It began with talk radio and Rush Limbaugh, and then migrated over to cable TV. So, now, the domination of the opinion debate, in any case, is dominated by sort of nonsense, argument, screaming at each other, and right wing values, which I have to say reached its apex in the discussion of anal sex and secular Jews on “Scarborough Country.”
SCARBOROUGH: Mike Kingsley, who used to be on “Crossfire,” wrote an editorial saying that he thought Jon Stewart was wrong, he thought that that sort of debate was good for America. Pat Buchanan actually talked about back when “Crossfire” was serious, back in the early 1990s. And it really – I mean, people did tune in to see “Crossfire.” It was about the only show of its kind at the time.
Do you think that having this sort of debate – having debate on cable news is bad for America?
KARLIN: I don’t think it’s bad for America, but I do agree with Eric, that what it’s kind of become more and more, as news media becomes more driven by ratings and things like that, it has become theatrical to a point, where it really isn’t helping illuminate issues or clarify sides.
INGRAHAM: However, I’m not so concerned about whether "Crossfire" was bad for the American culture debate, it’s part entertainment, it’s some substance, and I think the market does decide these things.
All shows have their own life spans, and some last longer than others. I mean, "Crossfire" was around for 20 years, almost like that.
SCARBOROUGH : Talk about the phenomenon of “The Daily Show,” because it strikes me that the two biggest forces now in cable news TV, are “The Daily Show” and “Fox News,” two obviously completely different beasts.
KARLIN: But I just think that there’s a high mind mentality to most press coverage, so it kind of becomes its own self-fulfilling thing once a show gets kind of hot, or whatever you want to call it. But we never ever, ever talk about ourselves as a news show. That is something that is always foisted on us, never talked about within our, you know, in our daily process.
SCARBOROUGH : Yeah.
KARLIN: – because – I mean, obviously, I think, you know, where our politics lie, we’re not hiding that fact, you know, that we lean certainly toward the more progressive side of the spectrum. But we never think about politics first. We never think about a news mandate first. We never – we don’t have any of that burden of objectivity—
SCARBOROUGH : It’s getting a laugh.
KARLIN: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH : That’s goal number one.
KARLIN: We don’t think about whether we have like some kind of obligation, or whether we’re a phenomenon like that. All that stuff is stuff that is just a created thing that has absolutely no bearing on our process, at all. And I actually think that like the whole idea that pundits are kind of concerned in the same kind of way about, you know, getting on the air and all that other stuff, is actually part of the problem. Because I do think that, you know, there should be a much clearer line between news and entertainment.
SCARBOROUGH : What does Bill O’Reilly get, 2.7 million viewers, just about every night? And his closest competitor, also on Fox, Hannity & Combs, sometimes is a million less. What is it about Bill O’Reilly that really breaks records every night for cable news?
UNDERWOOD: Do you want me to be honest?
SCARBOROUGH : Yeah.
UNDERWOOD: He has turned being a disagreeable asshole into an entertaining art. That’s really what it is. Because…no, really – and Bill, I would love to come on your show, baby, but I love to watch him attack people, and not let them answer the question he asks them. And then tell them, “Don’t nobody believe that. Take that spin somewhere else.” That’s black. That’s black stuff, you know.
ALTERMAN: If it’s just good TV, then there’s no point in just talking about – or bad TV. [The Daily Show] matters for the follow reasons. Number one it gives people license to lie. The only place I saw – when George Bush was debating John Kerry, and he said, “I never said I don’t care about Osama bin Laden.” The only place that put him on tape showing it was “The Daily Show.” When Dick Cheney said, “I never said there was any meeting in Prague,” the only place that put him on tape showing that there was a meeting, was “The Daily Show.”
SCARBOROUGH : So, you’re saying the daily news is hard—
ALTERMAN: — “The Daily Show” is not—
SCARBOROUGH : You’re saying it’s hard news?
ALTERMAN: No. What I’m saying is that the pack mentality of the punditocracy is so powerful that “The Daily Show’ becomes liberal because it’s the only one paying attention to the facts. The facts are liberal, to quote the great Steven Colbert.
INGRAHAM: I just think as long as the Democrats keep pointing outward to the reason why their message is not resonating with the American people, the more the Democrats are going to keep losing. So, I don’t mind if we’re all twisted up about how the cable news is so awful, or it’s for the stupid people. I’m happy for that debate to go on, because Republicans will continue to win, as long as that’s the focus.
GAROFALO: I’d like to comment on that. First of all, the Republican message, such as it is, does dominate the public conversation. And in my opinion, 90% of it is false. And almost every single thing that comes out of the White House is the opposite. So, to say that the message isn’t resonating with people, the reason that – if the Republican message is resonating with more people, that’s the main message that they receive. Beyond that, they’re getting a false message.
If people really knew what their government was up to, and what they were really doing, and what the Clear Skies Initiative really is, what healthy forests really is, what – and you know the thing is, George W. Bush didn’t win in 2000 – the 2000 election, he was put into office by Antonin Scalia.
SCARBOROUGH : But wait, something’s interesting is happening here, and I want to comment on it. I want to comment on it for a second. We’ve heard from Eric, the facts are liberal. There’s a general feeling among some that what goes on in cable news and talk radio [is] stupid. Janeane, I know you believe it, but you say 90% of everything that comes out of the White House is wrong. And then there’s complaints about the coarsening of public debate. Of course, Jon went after Tucker, talking about how there’s a coarsening of public debate. And I think he called him what… a dick-head?
KARLIN: It was just “a dick,” actually.
SCARBOROUGH : A dick. Okay.
SCARBOROUGH : But it’s amazing to me that we talk about the coarsening of debate, because I’m willing to say, Janeane, you’re right. On environment issues, a lot of things wrong with the White House. On spending, a lot of things wrong with the White House. Did they handle post-Iraq, whatever, no, they didn’t handle that correctly.
And again, I call that nuance. I don’t think Democrats are evil. I don’t think John Kerry is evil. I don’t think Howard Dean is evil. I think they bring facts to the floor, and we have a fair and open debate. And sometimes it gets tough, but you know in Congress, they used to kill people with canes, in the middle of the debates.
LOCKHART: And let me talk. We have real issues, they are complicated. There is no absolute right or wrong, but what punditry cable news – and listen, I actually agree with you. I worked for John Kerry. We didn’t lose because of cable news. We lost because he couldn’t clearly articulate what he was for, on a consistent basis.
KARLIN: That’s right. That’s right.
LOCKHART: You know, we should have done better. We didn’t. We didn’t—
But whatever happened to sort of the idea that there was someone sitting there who was the honest broker? I mean, I would take your argument about, we can have an honest debate about Iraq, a little more seriously if you hadn’t said, “We can have an honest debate about Iraq, but I’ll win.” And all these shows come on with this idea that the host is going to ultimately win. When was the last time Bill O’Reilly lost an argument?
SCARBOROUGH : But is he a genius?
LOCKHART: No, but the thing—
SCARBOROUGH : Does he win all arguments? He doesn’t.
LOCKHART: It’s his show.
SCARBOROUGH : But you know, the thing is, that started, though – and this is what’s so interesting – we’re talking about cable news – that didn’t start with Fox News. That started with John Kennedy in the 1960 debate, where it was Richard Nixon that was pale, sweaty next to Kennedy.
ALTERMAN: It’s a matter of degree. It’s a matter of degree. There’s always been a show business element of politics, but it’s taken over to the point where it’s crowded out just about everything else.
LOCKHART: There used to be – but there used to be – and again, I’m not trying to make a moral judgment here, but we are in a different world of the media. I mean, I was here a couple years ago talking about this very subject. It used to be that the network news divisions were loss leaders. They lost money, but that was seen as something that was okay.
Now, we have – we have consolidated the media to such a point that there’s only three or four companies that own most of the radio stations, most of the TV stations, most of the cable stations. And it is seen as not any different than the entertainment division. There is a bottom line that has to be met.
So I think we’re not going to – we’re not going to improve punditry in the debate by saying, “Let’s change cable news.” It’s reacting to the market. Because only the super-interested are watching. You know, I think, being optimistic about this, there is a whole other world that’s – there’s a whole other wave that’s about to wash over cable news on the Internet where people have the ability to go out and speak directly, and have a voice.
But we’re just not going to it. No matter how many times we sit here and talk about it, we’re not going to change the nature of it.
KARLIN: And that’s all with no fact check, that Internet stuff.
ALTERMAN: Quick question: 59 million people voted, roughly, for George Bush; 57 million, roughly, for John Kerry. Why is there not a single liberal pundit with his or her own show on cable TV? We can name lots of conservatives. Not a single liberal.
SCARBOROUGH : I can tell you this. I know, at my network, at CNN, if it competed with Fox News, I’d be out on my butt in a second. I think – I think it’s market-driven. I think – I mean, you could talk about demographics.
I don’t think progressives watch cable news as much as – you know, I had somebody from Fox News tell me one time when I started my show – they said, “We really don’t care what happens east of the Hudson or west of Las Vegas. We’re going for red state America, and that’s how we’re going to build this into the top show.” And I’ll be darned if, four years later, that formula didn’t work.
So I think again that’s what the focus has been. And maybe some of the more progressive pundits wouldn’t play as well with the people that turn on cable news as much. I don’t think they’re watching O’Reilly on the Upper West Side, as much as they are in Kansas City.
SCARBOROUGH : But who brought up this point, though, before we came out – it may have been Janeane, I don’t know if it was you, Eric – but people watch Fox News, but then when the tsunami hits, CNN’s numbers go through the roof. On the State of the Union, a lot of people turn to Matthews. I mean, people are smart enough to figure out what they’re going to get when they go to Fox News.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question is why, as an advisor to John Kerry, did you not want to force him to talk about that issue more when Karl Rove said that the Republicans are most vulnerable on that issue?
LOCKHART: Nobody paid attention because what they’re looking for – there’s a formula here. And what happens is – and I don’t know who started this, whether it was the political people or the TV people or the journalists, but both of us now live off the same formula, which is, if you don’t create some conflict, if you don’t call the other guy and asshole, then it’s not news.
UNDERWOOD: You know what the problem with punditry is? You guys are talking between yourselves and you’re not talking to the audience. You’re talking to yourselves. You’re saying the same mess over again.
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