The new writers' bloc: they've got attitude, humor, and an eye for detail. But could journalism's new stylists do more? - influence of journalist Maureen Dowd

Washington Monthly, Nov, 1992 by Katherine Boo

Caricature assassination

Coursing through stories of this sort is a fundamental doubt about the beneficial possibilities of the democratic process. It's so phony, says the subtext, that I'm not going to try to wring out any meaning. Instead, I'm going to amuse you. That seemed to be the approach the Times' Elizabeth Kolbert embraced in covering a series of nasty Clinton-Tsongas exchanges in Florida in March. Characterizing the candidates' sparring as "a private spat being carried out in public," she wrote: "After listening to the two men harp at each other for a few days running, one cannot help feeling somehow implicated in their dispute. Perhaps, one wonders, it is time to find them professional counseling."

Kolbert's metaphor is as revealing as it is patronizing. Locking in on the posturing, she actually seems to believe that what they're arguing about-- which happened to be the taxation of entitlements for the affluent as a means of cutting the deficit--is as private a matter as a marriage dispute. In this conception, and it's not just Kolbert's, politics is not about affixing an imprint on a country or the world. It's a wholly self-serving, inner-directed enterprise.

How did these good political writers get so jaded about their subject? Times reporter John Tierney's winter review of a Pat Buchanan TV ad mocking Bush's no-new-taxes pledge offers, between the lines, a fair clue.

But then at some point, maybe around the 50th showing, for some viewers the sound bite begins to acquire a surreal fascination, as if it is disclosing something deep inside Mr. Bush. As he jabs his finger into the air and screeches the words again and again, with each commercial he begins to seem more and more desperate, more and more absurd. For these dedicated television viewers, it has been difficult to take the president seriously ever since.

I'd wager that Tierney isn't just speaking of "dedicated television viewers." He's giving us a glimpse into what it's like to trail the campaign as a member of the press. To these bored and overexposed insiders, everybody eventually begins to seem absurd, predictable, incapable of sincerity, inspiration, or meaning--undeserving of being "taken seriously."A game it is, then. Whoever pens the most metaphors wins.

What's so dreadful about that? Well, there's the tiresome matter of the people--what Dowd calls "the Joe Sixpack constituency." Sure, it's useful to them to know that politicians' proposals for tax relief or health care or education always involve a healthy dose of calculation, absurdity, and melodrama. But-- should we even have to say it?--when one of those politicians (however ridiculous) is elected, his proposals (however cynical) may have a real effect on their lives. Joe Sixpack knows this, and duller stories in the dailies outline it clearly: Polls and focus groups show that voters are very worried about the economy, the quality of public schools, and the cost of health care--and they're frustrated by the apparent inability of politicians to get serious about those issues. Yet even when explaining the national disgust with glib politicking, the popular yearning for discussion of real issues, Dowd can't resist singsonging: "They say they want leaders with candor, not leaders who pander."