Jokingly linked to in my last post, Evgenia Peretz's Vanity Fair article actually deserves a serious read. It's a well-researched indictment of the anti-Gore bias that pervaded mainstream reporting throughout the 2000 election. The author singles out Kit Seelye of the Times for sloppy reporting that helped unfairly brand "GORE IS A LIAR" onto public consciousness. Seelye, as well as Maureen Dowd, is also faulted for uncritically promoting "honest frat boy versus arrogant untrustworthy geek" as the election's dominant narrative frame.
As a writer of opinion pieces, Dowd's disdain for Gore and seeming soft-spot for Bush are questionable as a matter of judgment but not evidence of journalistic incompetence (perhaps of bad taste though, given her gall in writing puff pieces about George W. during the campaign and then a few years later publishing Bushworld, whose premise is that she knew what the Bushes were about all along). The examples from Seelye's reporting are more troubling; that Seelye still covers politics for the Times (see her story on the Obama SNL skit) makes past errors in her reporting very relevant. Without intending to join the (mostly conservative) bloggers who exist solely to second-guess NYT writers (e.g. Krugman Truth Squad), I will be reading Seelye's stories extra-closely throughout this election (especially if Hillary gets the nomination and the right-wing echo chamber really begins to pound). One hopes they will not resemble her real-time web commentary on the second Presidential debate in 2004, when she largely ignored substantive clash to applaud various "Bushisms" ("he looked at me like my buzzer was up") and offer the following concluding observation: "Bush is charged-up and feisty; Kerry seems wordy."
The frustrating question of why American media in 2000 transformed a serious, far-sighted Vice-President (and future Nobel Peace Prize winner) into a gutless and mendacious hack remains far from answered. At least Evgenia Peretz has begun to compile the evidence.
Just to be clear, I don't revive the issue of Gore's 2000 media coverage in the hopes of him receiving better treatment in 2008. Steve Kornacki of the New York Observer convinces me that Barack Obama pre-emptively sapped the thunder from a Draft Gore campaign. In allying themselves with Obama, activist progressives largely disappeared as Gore's natural base. Unlikely to serve again in government, one hopes that private citizen Gore will continue his outstanding efforts even under a Democratic administration.
On a final and totally irrelevant note, check out the above link to Seelye's NYT profile: doesn't she resemble Annette Bening as Sydney Ellen Wade in The American President? Not a bad look. I wonder how Seelye would cover a real life President Andrew Shepherd. The fictional Shepherd shared Gore's commitment to mandatory cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; unlike Gore, he was willing to stake the White House on climate change legislation. Since the movie's release in 1995, President Shepherd's proposed legislation has seemed pure utopia; today's Times suggests such legislation to be inching closer to reality. I barely need mention Gore's role in making this happen.
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I think though that it is unfortunate that Obama inherits the strength of progressive (and enlightened) activists from Gore, who is a much more effective, accomplished, and experienced politician in many important ways. This isn't to say that I am nostalgic enough to want Gore to run again, but simply that thinking of Obama as inheriting Gore's still-born potential as President is in itself rather short-sighted. I worry that the similarities we are noticing are mainly stylistic, since Obama's resume is mainly that, and not substantive enough to warrant legitimate hope in Obama as heir-apparent to the progressive left. At least, not in this election.
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