I was in Ames, Iowa, in the summer of 1999 for the Republican straw poll. The event is best remembered at this point for the lavish nature of Steve Forbes' hospitality tent, which redefined supply-side economics. Generous portions of lobster were supplied, and while I didn't make it near the teeming feeding troughs, I did get inside the tent, where Debbie Boone supplied the entertainment.
While Boone was lighting up the lives of the Forbesians, George W. Bush was out in the parking lot with Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Co.) and the Coloradoan's boisterous contingent of motorcyclists. Bush, wearing a denim shirt at this point (an early clue that his people thought of everything), concluded his talk by announcing that he was going to Washington to bring "dignity" to the White House and to "change the tone" in the capital. I looked around at the nodding heads and realized that this formulation seemed to strike only me as blatant doublespeak: He was twisting the knife into Bill Clinton's flesh while swearing in the next breath that in a Bush-run Washington, no such knife twisting would be tolerated.
Also there, down on the other side of the basketball arena, in the also-ran section of the parking lot, was Elizabeth Dole's depopulated hospitality tent. I don't remember seeing Ari Fleischer there that day, but he was at that point in her employ. In short order, he got himself off Also-Ran Row and onto the Gold Coast, as it were. And now, four years later, as he departs, it's worth noting just how -- and how dramatically -- the tone in Washington has indeed changed.
Al Franken says it well, and you'll be able to read all about in his book Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them -- a Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, due out in October. What they really meant when they said they'd change the tone, Franken observes, was something like this: If you elect Al Gore, we're going to keep up the assault, maybe even intensify it, because as you see from the campaign, we're branding him a liar over the most inconsequential little things (which -- oh, by the way -- don't even happen to be lies). But if you elect us, then all this stuff will stop. So presto! The tone will change!
That's the moral equivalent of an armed robber saying to the bank, "Here's an idea. You just give me the money now, and I won't have to hold you up. Therefore the tone of robber-bank relations will change." But Washington is a strange place, morally, and so, while many insiders acknowledge privately that this is pretty much the situation, publicly -- especially after September 11, but also just for the sake of the town's self-esteem -- a fiction of something approximating dignity must be maintained.
And fiction it is. Fleischer hadn't even taken up residency in the capital before he started telling the most laughable whoppers you could imagine. My favorite was his assertion that Palm Beach County -- one of the most heavily Jewish redoubts in the state of Florida -- was in fact "a Pat Buchanan stronghold." Later, after he'd been in the White House only a matter of days, he perfectly repeated the ethical sleight of hand his boss had pulled off in that Ames parking lot. Fleischer hinted mightily that the damage done to the White House by Clinton staffers had been substantial, but then added that -- why heavens no! -- Bush didn't wish to dwell on the matter in the interest of setting "a different tone." That, as Jake Tapper observed in Salon, was "quite magnificent, in its way": Superficially pretend the story is beneath Bush's dignity, and at the same time, with a nudge and a wink, throw a few logs on a raging, and phony, fire.
Of course, at this point, Fleischer was just revving his engine. He eventually scaled greater heights: Blaming Clinton for the breakdown in the Middle East peace process was a good one, and of course we have the recent example of the USS Abraham Lincoln being too far out to sea for a helicopter to make the trip. These, and many more, were rendered with that same stone face. That face, incidentally, has been Fleischer's secret. It is as flat and imperturbable as a pond of stagnant water -- so unmarred by emotion, so devoid of anything approaching human empathy that in its certitude it almost made the whoppers believable. Of course, Elisabeth, the tax cut overwhelmingly benefits the poor. As you know, Ron, the economy is very strong. In point of fact, Anne, the sky is green. The president has long said the sky is green. Others will have their view. Anything further?
Even so, if the tone change were merely about the dissimulations of a press flack, it would be easily tolerable -- and easy to counter. But it's much more than that.
Since Bush took office, the same machinery that spent eights years accusing the Clintons of everything up to (and actually including) murder has turned its sights on anyone who has dared to have a different idea about America than the administration. Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), often denounced as unpatriotic, is now the target of a campaign by two South Dakota businessmen to destroy him; doing so, said one, would be an act of "political hygiene," a phrase that echoes with a decidedly national-socialist ring. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), for a line about regime change at home that was basically a joke and a throwaway, was subjected to repeated abuse designed not just to answer him but to smear him and besmirch his reputation. Academics who have uttered the mildest criticisms of administration policy have found themselves monitored by a group set up by Lynne Cheney and William "Bellagio" Bennett. Comics, movie stars and recording artists have been slimed, and the Murdoch Empire, functioning as a GOP Ministry of Propaganda, keeps it all rolling along.
The Bush White House, of course, is clever enough to keep its powder relatively dry on the worst of these attacks. It leaves such dirty work to its loudmouths and crackpots on FOX and in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times. But this, too, is cynical and cheap. And if conservatives wonder why liberals have such negative feelings about this White House, they might ponder this: A leader who was actually trying to unite the country after it came under attack and who was actually interested in the nation pulling together behind its troops overseas just might say something to the effect of, "Hey, let's cool it here. Tom Daschle is a patriot. John Kerry proved his patriotism in war. Let's disagree, let's argue and let's even sling a little mud, in respectable measure, because that, too, is a part of politics. But let's keep patriotism out of it. We're all Americans here."
That's something a leader worthy of respect would say. Bush would never say it, though, both because Karl Rove would never permit him saying it and because he benefits so grandly from the bloviators and mercenaries who say the opposite on his behalf. He would never have won without them and he can't be re-elected without them. And when Bush has opened his mouth on matters of national or international unity, it has usually been to take undignified swipes at the French or at the Mexicans or at the senators who oppose his tax cuts or who otherwise have the temerity to disagree with him.
And so on it goes. Fleischer's impenetrable whoppers have stymied even those journalists who are really trying to do their jobs and get actual information (there aren't many, but they do exist), and the rest of the propaganda machinery makes enemies of the state out of anyone who disputes the party line.
Nice work if you can get it. The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash has gotten it, and he made some statements to JournalismJobs.com the other day that were a little too revealing. Asked why conservative media have become more popular in recent years, he replied: "Because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view, and people like point-of-view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it, too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it, actually."
That's tone change, all right.
Michael Tomasky's column appears every Wednesday at TAP Online.