Phil Donahue is the kind of dying-breed liberal who seems convinced that if we all just really listen to each other, put aside our differences and realize that we have the same values at heart, everyone will get along and the world will be a better place.
There's something admirable about that sort of compassion. It's a quality, however, that makes most of Donahue's new eponymous talk show on MSNBC embarrassing to watch -- especially for liberals desperate for an effective voice in the media. Contrary to all logic, the executives at struggling MSNBC have taken a guy who thinks we all should get along and given him virtually the same material as his competitor Bill O'Reilly (and most other cable talk shows): a bunch of second-rate pundits screaming at each other.
The last thing TV needs, though, is one more hour of talking heads. And the last person who should be doing it is Phil Donahue.
It's not, as some critics have suggested, that Donahue is washed up. In the segments that allow Donahue to be himself -- to ask people to tell their stories and relate them to the issues of the day -- he exudes the same warmth and understanding that made his daytime talk show such a long-running success.
Talking heads don't have a moving story to tell, though. They have an agenda to push, by virtually any means necessary. And in the lead segments of his show thus far -- as one pundit screams while the other counters with "Please don't interrupt me" -- Donahue has seemed totally incapable of maintaining control. Indeed, he appears so off-put by the aggressiveness of his guests that he's often barely capable of forming a coherent sentence. "He's gathering weapons of mass destruction -- bombs and weapons. He's already gassed the Kurds. We've got to do it. He's going to send a nuclear ... " That's the kind of rambling that passed for hosting during a debate Monday the 15th on whether to attack Iraq. It's enough to make a liberal pine for Fox News's O'Reilly, who may be pompous and patronizing but at least knows how to ask pointed questions and control an interview.
Donahue's much-publicized June 15 debate with Pat Buchanan over the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance demonstrated the host's inability to bring argument and passion to a medium that demands it. Donahue might have kept things simple and concise, and explained why the words "under God" don't belong in a patriotic pledge. Instead, he told a long, irrelevant story about Jehovah's Witnesses who successfully sued to prevent their children from being forced to recite the pledge in the 1940s. When Buchanan agreed nobody should be forced to do it, Donahue had no other options but to sit and let him rant about "arrogant judges" and a "sorry atheist" (and even call Donahue a "dictatorial liberal"). By the end, you could sense Buchanan's pity for his hopelessly outmatched opponent.
Occasionally, though, Donahue brings a human element into his show. On June 16, for instance, after one segment of heated debate over the USA Patriot Act, Donahue interviewed the wife of a Muslim man who has been locked up for seven months without being charged. With her short answers and sad demeanor, the woman was clearly uncomfortable talking on TV. Donahue had to draw her out, and he succeeded, finally using his skills effectively.
Things became even more interesting when he brought on the widower of a woman who died in one of the airplanes that hit the World Trade Center. The man talked about his sadness and why he felt little sympathy for those locked up in efforts to prevent terrorism. Donahue showed the man the same compassion he had shown the incarcerated Muslim's wife. In fact, he even got the widower and the wife to talk to each other. At that point, for the first time, the show truly became engaging, and Donahue gently stepped back in a way that O'Reilly or James Carville could never do.
There's nothing new about this, of course. Getting two people who ought to hate each other to communicate is a staple of the daytime talk genre that Donahue pioneered in 1967. But it's a serious departure for a prime-time political talk show -- an experiment in personal engagement that could bring a new twist to the genre.
The widower and the Muslim wife hadn't even talked for a minute, however, before Donahue's conservative guest began to berate the woman about her husband's suspicious activities. Meanwhile, the show's civil libertarian guest condescendingly explained to the widower why we can't "give up our freedoms." And that's exactly what's wrong with "Donahue": Its host has been shoehorned into a pre-existing, combative talk show format. Unless MSNBC allows him to re-create the political talk show -- which doesn't seem likely -- he'll never be much more than an ineffectual liberal who provides a platform for talking heads to yell.
I shudder to think what Ann Coulter's going to do to him tonight.
