Let's face it: whatever happens in today's debate, cable news will proclaim US President George W. Bush the winner. This will reflect the political bias so evident during the party conventions. It will also reflect the undoubted fact that Bush does a pretty good Clint Eastwood imitation.
But what will the print media do? Let's hope they don't do what they did four years ago.
Interviews with focus groups just after the first 2000 debate showed vice president Al Gore with a slight edge. Post-debate analysis should have widened that edge. After all, during the debate, Bush told one whopping lie after another -- about his budget plans, about his supposed prescription drug proposal and more. The fact-checking in the next day's papers should have been devastating.
But front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Gore's sighs, but nothing about Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Adam Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" -- that is, Bush's lies -- "against the other's minor errors."
The result of this emphasis on the candidates' acting skills rather than their substance was that after a few days, Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory.
This time, the first debate will be about foreign policy, an area where Bush ought to be extremely vulnerable. After all, his grandiose promises to rid the world of evildoers have all come to naught.
Exhibit A is, of course, Osama bin Laden, whom Bush promised to get "dead or alive," then dropped from his speeches after a botched operation at Tora Bora let him get away. And it's not just bin Laden: most analysts believe that al-Qaeda, which might have been crushed if Bush hadn't diverted resources and attention to the war in Iraq, is as dangerous as ever.
There's also North Korea, which Bush declared part of the "axis of evil," then ignored when its regime started building nuclear weapons. Recently, when a reporter asked Bush about reports that North Korea has half a dozen bombs, he simply shrugged.
Most important, of course, is Iraq, an unnecessary war, which -- after initial boasts of victory -- has turned into an even worse disaster than the war's opponents expected.
The Kerry campaign is making hay over Bush's famous flight-suit stunt, but for me, Bush's worst moment came two months later, when he declared: "There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on." When they really did come on, he blinked: US forces -- obviously under instructions to hold down casualties at least until November -- have ceded much of Iraq to the insurgents.
During the debate, Bush will try to cover for this dismal record with swagger, and with attacks on his opponent. Will the press play Karl Rove's game by, as Clymer puts it, confusing political coverage with drama criticism, or will it do its job and check the candidates' facts?
There have been some encouraging signs lately. There was a disturbing interlude in which many news organizations seemed to accept false claims that Iraq had calmed down after the transfer of sovereignty. But now, as the violence escalates, they seem willing to ask hard questions about Bush's fantasy version of the situation in Iraq. For example, a recent Reuters analysis pointed out that independent sources contradict his assertions about everything "from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections."
Bush is also getting less of a free ride than he used to when he smears his opponent. Last week, after Bush declared that Senator John Kerry "would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today," the Associated Press pointed out that this "twisted his rival's words" -- and then quoted what Kerry actually said.
Nonetheless, tonight there will be a temptation to revert to drama criticism -- to emphasize how the candidates looked and acted, and push analysis of what they said, and whether it was true, to the inside pages. With so much at stake, the public deserves better.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US