Conservatives shape Bush public opinion, press backs them up

by Geneva Overholser

WASHINGTON -- Who's defending the president? And who is -- or isn't -- attacking him? These have been key in shaping the light touch of early George W. Bush coverage. A recent opinion piece by Washington Post reporter John Harris, who covered Clinton, notes: "The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. Take it from someone who made a living writing about those uproars. ... There is no well-coordinated corps of aggrieved and methodical people who start each day looking for ways to expose and undermine a new president." When Clinton changed his mind, critics pounced, and news stories depicted each incident as evidence that "slick Willie" had no abiding convictions. When Bush has changed his mind -- on school vouchers, the size of the tax cut, carbon-dioxide pollution -- he's seen as "shrewd rather than servile," Harris noted.

"Conservatives have built up a well-funded, well-targeted set of organizations aimed at shaping public opinion. And the press obliges. The left has nothing comparable. One result is that, with a conservative now in office, there's simply less coverage. The Project for Excellence in Journalism here examined the networks, Newsweek and a couple of leading newspapers, and found 41 percent fewer stories on the president in Bush's first two months, compared with Clinton's. And early Bush coverage "focused on quick judgments about whether Mr. Bush was up to the job -- and declared that the answer, after low expectations, was yes." "As a whole, the press has depicted Bush as a skillful manager, more comfortable as an insider than a man of the people, who is stubbornly pursuing a sincere, conservative ideological agenda even if it is controversial." Clinton was depicted "as a politician of the people whose actions and policies were often highly calculated but also more popular." Writing in 1994, Thomas Patterson, a political scientist now at Harvard, said: "Press accounts of Clinton's first year in office made it appear as if negotiation is a crime against the body politic. Each compromise was reported as a headlong retreat from principle."

"Of course, Bush's early good press isn't just about low expectations or absence of outside agitation. It reflects a well-managed appointments process and a well-ordered White House. But discipline is tight partly to cover Bush's lack of surefootedness, a fact reporters seem uncertain how to deal with. As Clinton's loudest defender, James Carville, puts it: "In the Clinton administration we worried the president would open his zipper, and in the Bush administration, they worry the president will open his mouth. The press finds it easier to cover sex than stupidity." Meanwhile, the well-oiled machinery of conservative opinion-making rolls on. I happened upon a Fox News program featuring a spokesperson for the Media Research Center here, discussing a report card on Bush coverage. All three big networks were hopelessly unfair, he reported. "They've been against him on the tax cut, they've been against his environmental policies. They've tried to blame him for floods and glaciers and things like that." The Fox News people chuckled, and a big red "F" appeared over the logo of CBS, cited as the worst offender. These tactics may not be adroit nor subtle, but they work. They rouse the ire of partisans, who complain to the press -- some of whose members then feel motivated to do what they can to prove the expectations wrong...."