When you're pulling your hair out during the debate tonight, it is not because Bob Schieffer thinks he is in league with Republicans. It is not even because Schieffer has palled around with McCain. Indeed, the likelihood is that if Schieffer were being honest (that is, honest to the extent of his self-knowledge), he would admit to identifying as a Democrat.
No, the problem is the embedded assumptions that distort the lens through which Schieffer (and many of his colleagues) see and understand the world. These are the kind of assumptions that let an Alan Greenspan be represented year after year as a sage, and that currently treat Mike Bloomberg's financial success in building a financial information services company as even vaguely relevant to the skills needed to run a City. These are the assumptions that require no "conspiracy" or "coordination," just a shared sense of what "everyone knows" to be true.
1. "Everyone knows" that social security must be "reformed" (tip of the hat to Tom Brokaw for trotting this out last time). No, there is an elite consensus that we should choose to make people live in more constrained circumstances in their retirement rather than more equitably distribute income to enable people to continue to receive the benefits they receive today. Even if Schieffer were to ask McCain about McCain's admission at the last debate that he would cut social security benefits (today's workers will not get the same benefits as current retirees), Schieffer wouldn't know how to follow-up: Schieffer would believe that McCain was giving the "correct" answer to recite the need for "reform."
2. "Everybody knows" that "both candidates" are being "unrealistic" by refusing to back away from their spending proposals in the face of the financial crisis. Perhaps Schieffer believes that any Republican President in the last 40 years has been interested in balancing the budget. He doesn't remember or want to remember that David Stockman admitted that the strategy of the Reagan Administration was to starve the government of funds so that domestic programs would be seen to be an unaffordable luxury. Also outside Schieffer's frame of reference is the fact that the Great Depression was not resolved by "belt tightening" by but massive government spending brought on by World War II.
3. People want "tax cuts," Democrats are one who tax and spend, and thus Democrats are "vulnerable" on the tax question. "Senator Obama, aren't you really going to raise taxes on ____?" It doesn't matter how many tax schemes are wildly skewed to favor the wealthy, we only hear about "class warfare" when the goal is to create more equity (we can safely predict that Senator McCain won't be asked why he is seeking continue to wage the class warfare against the poor and middle class that the richest among us have successfully waged for the last eight years).
4. Senator McCain has the national security credentials, and thus Senator Obama needs to "prove" himself. Democrats have been allowing themselves to be bullied on national security issues since the McCarthy era, so it is not surprising that Schieffer and his colleagues find it unimaginable that Obama doesn't simply fall down when McCain attacks. So we're much more likely to hear about the success of the surge than we are to hear about the Republican abandonment of Afghanistan.
5. Afghanistan, of course, reminds us of a crucial basis for all of the embedded assumptions: history began yesterday, or, at the longest, a week ago (except for attacks on Obama's supposed associations). As such, Schieffer accepts the master narrative of Republicans -- starting with Reagan -- standing tall to defeat our adversaries, a thrilling counterpoint to the defeatism of Vietnam. There can be 20 books written about blowback, and patient explanations given of how the U.S. supported and enabled bin Laden and supported and enabled Hussein, but all of that simply doesn't exist in Schieffer-world.
6. Conservation is nice, but economic growth depends on robust energy use. In the first iteration of this appeal to a vanished world (the gas tax holiday) the press could not believe that Obama wasn't swamped by the gimmick. The most deeply embedded assumption is that "economic growth" depends on growth in population, consumption, and building. For all of Schieffer's promises to hold the candidates' feet to the fire, don't expect Senator McCain to be asked to confirm that all experts believe that "drill, baby, drill" won't yield a drop for years. Or whether McCain really thinks that a concern about the safety of nuclear power plants is silly.
7. Both candidates need to be pushed on negativism, as though all "attacks" are equal (yes, false equivalence is actually Commandment Number 1). False and irrelevant versus true and relevant? Both have been said, so both are attacks and both weigh the same.
8.The Republican view of the campaign is what the campaign is about. This will likely lead (as it had in the past) to probing Obama with an "are you a bad guy" question, and to "digging equally deeply" to ask McCain, "Is Obama a bad guy?" On the other hand, we might get to see Obama challenged as to whether he is unfairly attacking McCain, and McCain asked whether Obama is unfairly attacking him. Wait a sec: both scenarios assumed that it was Obama who either had something to hide or that it was McCain who was being unfairly maligned.
9. It will look unfair if I challenge McCain more than Obama. I remember how much heat CBS took when Dan Rather challenged Bush the First. The impact, of course, is that the candidate who lies more gets the benefit of a higher percentage of lies going unchallenged. Why wouldn't this assumption work to protect the Democrat? Because Schieffer doesn't believe that the consequences of angering Democrats are nearly as serious as the consequences of getting Republicans upset.
10. McCain the Maverick. What can one say?
Gee, I hope I'm wrong, but I haven't even mentioned the burning desire in the MSM to have a "game changer" that "makes it anybody's race."
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