Kieran Healy

Democracy in Action

President Bush made a short speech that contained some of his toughest rhetoric on Iraq. “Saddam Hussein will be stopped,” he said at the end. And in words that reporters must now be used to writing, the Times tells us that “The president then left the room, without taking questions.”

It’s quite difficult to find a record of all of the times President Bush has gotten up in front of an audience—of reporters or regular people—and taken unscripted questions. You’d think someone would be keeping track of this. Shouldn’t be too hard—for one thing, it has to be a short list. As far as I can tell, the last time he answered any questions was on a “nature walk” over Christmas break. Being able to have the boss explain himself to you, rather than just tell you what’s going to happen next, is supposed to be one of those fringe-benefits of living in a democracy. I think many Americans are forgetting what it’s like to see that happen.

I was reminded of this because I heard a report that Tony Blair had been on Newsnight (a current affairs programme on the BBC) answering questions about Iraq. He was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman. Paxman began the interview like this:

Good evening, welcome to a Newsnight special in which we’ll be cross-examining the Prime Minister on the confrontation with Iraq. After yesterday’s performance at the UN America looks more determined than ever to go to war. Our government is George Bush’s closest ally yet many here and around the world would not believe the case for war has been made.

Tonight in the Baltic Centre in Gateshead we’ve invited the Prime Minister to face an audience of ordinary people from here in the north-east, all of whom are sceptical about the arguments for war with Iraq.

Facing them is the Prime Minister.

(During the questions from the studio audience, someone called Blair the “member (MP) for Texas North,” which was rather good.)

All of this, of course, was a perfectly run-of-the-mill political debate. Nothing special about it. Paxman asked some tough questions, Blair did his best to answer them, audience members had their say with the PM and it all went out on a short tape delay. For example:

JEREMY PAXMAN: And you believe American intelligence?

TONY BLAIR: Well I do actually believe this intelligence –
JEREMY PAXMAN: Because there are a lot of dead people in an aspirin factory in Sudan who don’t.

TONY BLAIR: Come on. This intelligence is backed up by our own intelligence and in any event, you know, we’re not coming to this without any history. I mean let’s not be absurdly naïve about this –
JEREMY PAXMAN: Hans Blix said he saw no evidence of hiding of weapons.

TONY BLAIR: I’m sorry, what Hans Blix has said is that the Iraqis are not cooperating properly.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Hans Blix said he saw no evidence, either of weapons manufacture, or that they had been concealed.

And so on. The point is that this was an informed conversation with the Prime Minister about the possibility of going to war. An interview of this sort with President Bush by a journalist of Paxman’s calibre, or anyone else—never mind follow-up questions from random audience members—is simply inconceivable. President Bush isn’t able for it, and frankly neither are most of the big-league TV talking heads.

Jurgen Habermas’s early work on The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere argues that a “political public sphere”—people arguing about the issues of the day, making the state justify itself—emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was very different from the “representative publicity” of the feudal period, where the monarch and the nobility simply displayed or “presented” their authority to their subjects. The monarch’s procession through his kingdom was the archetype of this kind of publicity—the role of the slack-jawed yokels was to be amazed at the authority of the king. Habermas is pessimistic in this book. He thinks that in the 19th and especially the 20th centuries the public sphere became “refeudalized”, with citizens once again becoming spectators of political authority. Political arguments “are translated into symbols to which again one can not respond [to] by arguing but only by identifying with” (206).

Tony Blair’s appearance on Newsnight would probably be an instance of refeudalization for Habermas, because most people are just watching the show—if even that. But it’s all relative. I think most of us would settle for just being able to passively watch President Bush have to defend his policies in front of somebody.

In the meantime, it looks like I’ll have to settle for the likes of Bill O’Reilly telling guests who refuse to be browbeaten to just “Shut up! Shut up!”

Update: As predicted, both Kevin Drum and Atrios are amazed at the idea of an interviewer giving an important political figure a hard time over a vital issue of the day. It’s a sign of how bad things are on the American political scene. As I’ve mentioned before, some of this can be traced to a complete absence of vigorous parliamentary debating societies at U.S. universities. What passes for debating over here is a kind of roboticized, high-speed version of the real thing. Many British public figures, including Jeremy Paxman and Tony Blair, would have cut their teeth at their local Debating Union. Believe me, you don’t know what it means to think on your feet till you’ve stood up in front of 400 easily bored Undergrads, a substantial number of whom are sharper and funnier than you and who won’t hesitate to shred you into little bits if they don’t feel like you’re worth listening to.

Kieran, you have hit the nail on the head. The administration’s pro-invasion program is so scripted that the President dare not appear in anything less than a scripted situation.

Blair, like him or not, faces significant opposition in his Cabinet and Caucus, not to mention in the remainder of the EU. But at least he has the presence of mind to be able to articulate his views, however unpopular.

Doesn’t the existence of the institution of “Prime Minister Question Time” in the House of Commons provide pressure in the British system for a PM who can speak intelligently and extemporaneously on any number of topics—which implies some sort of understanding of those subjects (or, at the very least, an ability to fake it convincingly, which, in itself, is a fairly valuable tool, especially in diplomacy and public relations).

In any event, I’m not certain that the lack of debating societies in the US is as important a factor as the simple structural fact that we don’t have a parliamentary system, where the Executive is intrinsically connected to the Legislative and cannot get away with hiding in his office, or speaking only in carefully scripted and controlled circumstances.

But in Bush’s case, the structural aspects which encourage the Cloistered Presidency is combined with a personal lack of ability to think clearly and express those thoughts effectively which is astounding in a public figure in high office. I watched tonight Colin Powell testifying before a Senate committee and the same kind of thought occured to me about his peformance: “Bush could never do that.”

On the other hand, Bill Clinton—who also took advantage, during the time he was under attack from the right, of the possibility of removing himself from unfiltered public questioning, has demonstrated a fairly amazing ability to speak off the cuff about complex subjects, in complete sentences and paragraphs, no less. Unlike Bush, he would have done well in the British system.

(I suppose that fact that he was a debater while at Oxford might have something to do with that.)

Interesting that Paxman would bring up the Sudan situation, which happened under Clinton and was carried out over the objections of the security establishment. But I digress.

That being said, true skeptical questioning of members of both parties is rare in this country (even on the Sunday morning shows); more often than not, politicians stick to their talking points and leave, then the partisan hacks deconstruct the statements in a round table format afterwards.

(Of course, it’s easy to take cheap shots at Bush’s nervousness in off-the-cuff public speaking, but I don’t recall a lot of insightful and adversarial interviews with Clinton either.)

No parliamentary debate in the United States? Teammates of mine won the world championships in 1993. And there is little doubt that the American and Australian variations are more substantive than the British without descending into the speedy ludicrousness of American “policy.”

Nope, not amazed. I live in the UK for awhile – i know the deal.

Hey Kieran – that’s you listed as 1993 winner, right? Good job, even if as an ex-TCD gal the sight of a college in the Wild Wesht winning is somewhat upsetting.

unfutz: you’re right about the environment of PMQs, but Kieran’s also right to mention the political blooding of most British politicians, whether at debating societies or at college political organisations. (For instance, Will Straw, son of Jack, has thankfully avoided the bearpit of the Oxford Union, and gone from being JCR President to being OUSU sabbatical prez.)

What’s also worth mentioning is the number of MPs who trace their professional backgrounds through two other environments where one has to hold one’s own as a speaker: either through trades union activism, or from training for the Bar. If you’ve had to face up to Justice Cocklecarrot as a trainee barrister, then you can certainly cope with Paxo.

As an American who has spent little time in Britain, I have no problem admitting that I was completely amazed by the excerpt from Paxman/Blair on the BBC world news and the transcript atrios linked to.

I was also deeply saddened because there is no chance at all that any American politician of stature, let alone Bush, would dare submit to such an interview. Nor, as was pointed out, is there anyone on American TV capable of leading such an interview.

As for Clinton, it’s true there were few adversary interviews that were intentionally public. But considering that there was a well-funded media effort to discredit him in every possible way (who killed vince foster and the like), it would be a mistake to compare the Clinton situation with Bush. In the former, the dissent was irresponsible, but it wasn’t suppressed. In the latter, there are active attempts to shut people up, no matter how mild the objection to Bush policies, as per the odious O’Reilly, merely the most egregious example of the past 3 days.

When I was last in London I had a chance to watch Parliament in session. It was a discussion on education, half the benches were empty, there was no media around—and these people were having a discussion! With real points, rather sharp ones at times. We went in thinking we would stay ten minutes, just to say we’d gone—ended up staying over an hour…

Woah. Lots of comments. Some reactions:

unfutz: Yes, you’re right—- there’s quite a tight link between those two institutions, of course. The college societies are modeled on the parliament, so that sort of arguing is a standard way to do thing. Nick Sweeney is right, too, that the Union activism and the law are the other main routes. Both involve having to speak up in front of people who aren’t afraid to talk back.

Jeff: Abslutely, there are some excellent parliamentary debaters in the U.S. I knew some of them while I was at Princeton. It is more of a fringe activity, though, more disconnected from politics. And the best of them have to adapt themselves to the parliamentary style when they go into international competitions.

D-planfan: Yeah, that’s me in 1993. So maybe I’m biased about this :) It does you Trinity jackeens good to have to suffer at the hands of the culchies every now and again.

Debate and Democracy

Kieran Healy and Kevin Drum are both remarking on Tony Blair’s ability to hold his own in tough, cut-and-slash questioning

I want my media back.

I want Bill Clinton back.

I want my Constitution back.

I want my surplus back.

That is all.

In Montreal, we can get programs from the US, Britain, and France fairly easily. Canadian politicans at least have Question Period, but for me nothing matched shows on French TV like “Le Moment du Verite”, which had a politician on stage for 2 hours answering questions from a panel of journalists representing right, left, or centrist papers. All with instant voting on whether the viewing public believed the speaker, made available through Minitel.
I once saw some minor official go from a 50-50 split on the question “Do you believe his version of events” to 95% no by the end of the program. The moment I saw that I was convinced I would never see anything like it on this side of the Atlantic. Let alone something like Anne Sinclair and 7 sur 7.

Does the treatment of the PM have anything to do with the fact that he’s not royalty?

ie, is the PM treated differently than the US treats Bush because the UK separates the roles of government official and national figurehead?

Would Paxman ever set into the Queen like that? Does Blair get tough questions like that because the obsequious treatment is reserved for the royals?

I think a lot of this is overstated. Tony Blair submitted to the interview because, in many ways, he realises he is his own best spin doctor. Even people who disagree with Blair most of the time though he did well with Paxman, as he did last summer with both him and the parliamentary liason committee—the first time a prime minister had appeared before any committee of Parliament. He voluntarily proposed to do this—there were grumbles about autocratic leadership from Downng Street, and the concession was unexpected.

The UK also has no tradition of political debates at the national level. In the last election Willam Hague, successful as he often was at PMQs, was rebuffed over his debate proposal by Blair and the Labour staff at Millbank. PMQs themselves may be entertaining, but do not really add much in the way of insight into the government and what it does. Last week Blair used PMQs to scuttle one of his manifesto promises, a reform of the House of Lords.

Bill Clinton, IMHO, may have done something like the Paxman interview, if there were someone in the press corps who could pull it off, and his his press office (and wife) would have let him. Bush probably can’t, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. He uses the limited rhetorical skills he has to full effect.

Our Tone was not involved with the Union at Oxford in the slightest, although at least one former President inhabits his Policy Unit…

I’d also add that the people I knew who won the World’s were not the best Parliamentary Debaters. They could win over judges, but had a harder time winning over an audience. I’ve never seen an American debater move an audience in the slightest.

So did you compete against Rod Clayton at any point, Kieran?

So did you compete against Rod Clayton at any point, Kieran?>

I definitely remember the name. We overlapped at at least one World’s, I think—- Melbourne, maybe. Did he speak with Rufus Black?

Rod’s a good friend and the name Rufus Black sounds familiar in the debating context. He’s now in San Francisco, so I thought if you were old adversaries you might want to look him up.

Noblesse d’Etat

Atrios reports that the White House have lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy over the “disrespectful’ interview by an Irish journalist discussed yesterday. Mere journalists apparently aren’t allowed to interrupt the President wh…