“Fox News Sunday” headed to a commercial Sunday with a Pakistani reading a newspaper to the strains of Randy Newman singing, “Let’s drop the Big One and see what happens.”
The latest entrant to the Sunday morning blather of public policy shows was thus tacky but relevant since the topic du jour was the feuding nuclear wannabes.
Armed with a couple of what were surely well-rehearsed sound bites, Defense Secretary William Cohen went on CBS’ “Face the Nation” to warn against “chauvinistic chest-pounding about their nuclear manhood” by India and Pakistan. Moments later, Cohen enlarged the statement to observe, “The road to Armageddon is paved with those engaged in nuclear chest-pounding.”
Only one subject inevitably intruded on the dire nuclear musings: Monica Lewinsky and oral sex. Fox trumpeted its having “the first Sunday television interview” with Charles Bakaly, a new spokesman (with a retro wet look and longish curls) for independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
So what that Bakaly would be on ABC a few moments later! He was on Fox first! Such coups de studio, as well as the repetition of sound bites from Cohen et al., are weapons in a merciless ratings war.
Not to be outdone, NBC’s “Meet the Press,” justifiably the top dog and most intelligent of the genre, offered an “exclusive” jailhouse interview with Susan McDougal, the Whitewater Joan of Arc who would much rather talk to NBC’s aggressively congenial Tim Russert than Bakaly’s boss. She said little, but she was exclusive.
Let there be no mistake. Competition for guests and a patina of actual news is fierce among Fox, “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts,” CBS’ “Face the Nation” and CNN’s “Late Edition.”
Dealmaking begins at midweek with the White House a critical component. Increasingly, the administration makes demands before agreeing to offer a spokesman of some sort, perhaps insisting on which section of the shoyw he or she appears.
The best it would cough up Sunday was hear-no-evilsee-no-evil communications director Lewis. Her characteristically dogmatic defense of President Clinton, delivered to Wolf Blitzer, might be matched only by Buddy, the dog, if his barks could be translated (“It isn’t that people don’t answer Starr’s questions; it’s that he doesn’t like their answers,” Lewis said — erroneously).
The shows seem to go to the ends of the Earth, and in so doing enrich independent satellite truck operators, to accommodate guests. Thus, Sunday found CNN corralling Pakistan’s prime minister in Islamabad, where he scoffed at the U.S. offer of “peanuts and lollipops” to stop nuclear testing, and CBS fetching Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) in Brussels.
ABC treked to Cotton Wood, Ariz., for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Fox to both Marco Island, Fla., for Dan Quayle and the Long Island beach community of Southampton, N.Y., for UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, who perhaps was studying reconnaisance photos with gin and tonic and wealthy Democratic contributors nearby.
In their quest to break “news,” the shows are a self-conscious echo chamber. Thus, CNN not only aired remarks Bakaly made on ABC that morning but analyzed what transpired on the shows during its new late-afternoon offering, “Investigating the President” (a name which should be good through the first Gore administration).
Finally, for someone who had not watched the shows in ages, there was this Martha Stewart thought. Table height is key.
The tables at NBC and ABC are high and add to a sense of quasi-gravitas. At Fox, CBS and CNN, they are much lower and resemble the ones used by county board members on public access channels.
Watching pundits’ knobby knees and crinkly pants Sunday got in the way of coming to terms with India and Pakistan perhaps dropping the Big One.
