Charles Kaiser on Hillary Clinton's This Week appearance

Victory is in the eye of the beholder.

In the New York Times, Alessandra Stanley saw a "forceful, confident and at times even frisky" Hillary Clinton on ABC's This Week yesterday, and a "grave and dispirited" Barack Obama on NBC's Meet the Press

Obama supporters saw a strident, somewhat demented Clinton. Asked to name a single economist who supports her idiotic proposal for a suspension of the gas tax—an idea Jon Alter identified as "the most irresponsible policy idea of the year"—Clinton responded, "I'm not going to put in my lot with economists." Apparently, that answer put her in tune with the know-nothing voters her pollsters have discovered—the ones who are enthralled with an idea that will simultaneously boost the demand for gasoline and increase big oil's profits.

"Talk shows," Stanley wrote, "even the more serious news programs, are never really about talk; they are about image and demeanor." That attitude—which also tends to permeate the copy of many political reporters—made it possible for Stanley to ignore the damage done by the questioner who followed Hillary's answer with this observation, "Call me crazy, but I actually listen to economists because they know what they studied." Instead, Stanley was dazzled by Clinton's "power move"—"rising eagerly to her feet to reply"—which meant she towered over George Stephanopoulos until the newsman stood up as well.

Similarly, Obama's nuanced answers to questions about Iraq and Iran earned him no points at all with the Times television critic; in fact, she mocked him for them. Obama gave "long, thoughtful and professorial answers to Tim Russert instead of changing the subject to his advantage."

On the other hand, Stephanopoulos seemed to have learned something from the torrent of criticism that came after he and Charlie Gibson moderated the Democratic debate in Philadelphia. Yesterday, George's questions were relentlessly substantive.

Not so on Meet the Press. Russert had no trouble repeating the same pointless question over and over again, as long as it was about Reverend Wright. Then he moved on briskly to patriotism ("How is he going to respond? How is he going to defend or define his patriotism?") and Obama's struggle to connect with white voters who only have a high school education. Finally, when he reached question 24, Russert asked something relating to an issue that might actually affect voters: why Obama opposes Clinton's gas tax proposal.

A couple of weeks back, John Harwood explained why so many of his colleagues in the press think it's useful to focus on gay marriage or flag pins or Jeremiah Wright instead of anything that might actually affect most of the electorate, like war or taxes or greenhouse gases.

On MSNBC, Harwood recalled how Lee Atwater had taken George H.W. Bush to a flag factory in 1988 to impugn Michael Dukakis's patriotism, and "everybody said in the press: what a ridiculous issue, what a slimy thing to do, what a dumb thing to do. Guess what? Lee Atwater was right in doing that for George H.W. Bush, that's why the things like the flag lapel pin are things that Barack Obama has to learn to have good answers for."

It's true that the flag factory trip turned out to be a plus for George Bush the elder, and I suppose that's why the Republicans remain addicted to wedge issues, since their policies on war and the economy are such an unmitigated disaster. But is it really the duty of the press to reinforce the trivial at the expense of the substantive?

The Republicans have to be hoping the answer to that question will always be yes.

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Charles Kaiser is the author of The Gay Metropolis and 1968 in America. He has been media editor for Newsweek, a member of the metro staff of the New York Times, and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he covered the press and book publishing. To learn more, visit charleskaiser.com.

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