Control of the Issues Discussed
Reported by Eleanor - August 15, 2004 -
The item to note about Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace (Aug. 15, 5:00 p.m.) was the choice of issues discussed, that were driven by the republican agenda and kept the democrats on the defensive.
The first interview was a ten-minute discussion with Richard Lugar, republican from Indiana, about the stand-off in Najaf, the word "sensitive," and Peter Goss as Terror Czar. (No democrats were included in this discussion) This was followed by a debate between Mary Maitlan and Donna Brazile about Gov. McGreevy; the word "sensitive" again; Kerry's vote on war; swift boats in Iraq; and stem stem cell research. Next was a panel discussion with Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, Susan Page, and Juan Williams about polls; whether Bush or Kerry had a good week; the word "sensitive" (3rd time); Viet Nam swift boats again; McGreevy again, and Alan Keyes. There was a refreshing Power Player of the Week segment at the end about Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN.
Comment: Democratic issues such as the economy, health care, education, the environment, minimum wage, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, drug prices, outsourcing of jobs, tax cuts for the wealthy, the deficit, new jobs with lower wages, alternative energy, and other democratic issues were left out of the talking points of the week as usual.
The fact is that the republicans are driving the national discussion through their control of the media. The only way the democrats can change the subject is to stray from the question asked. The discussion generally has a couple of democrats who provide the liberal side of the issue, like Donna Brazile and Juan Williams today, but neither is an especially strong advocate, and the discussion was focused on issues the republicans wanted to talk about and nothing else. About the positive poll numbers for Kerry, Hume said that some polls show national security or "strong leader" as Bush's only strength, but this discussion ended with: the numbers are "within the margin of error on 13 polls."
I'm waiting to see how much the media controls the debates; and if the debates will be scripted to focus on the republican talking points as well, with Kerry forced to defend himself on republican turf, rather than having the ability to bring in liberal issues that will point out democratic strengths. Since Bush's record on these issues is so miserable, the debates will break Bush if he doesn't have the advantage of controlling debate topics.
