Given my tirade just days ago on the divide and conquer mentality, there was an interesting exchange Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" between Tim Russert and Bush political advisor Karen Hughes.
MR. RUSSERT: You do write that you are surprised that [Bush] has not been able to change the tone in Washington.
MS. HUGHES: I am disappointed by that. That's true, and I think that he worked hard to do so. I remember when we moved here and he had Democrats come to the White House and meet with him. He worked with Senator Ted Kennedy on the education bill. He invited the leadership to come to meetings. But I had seen in Texas, where he worked very effectively with the Democratic lieutenant governor and Democratic speaker in an atmosphere of trust, and unfortunately, it seems to be very hard to create that atmosphere of trust in Washington.
MR. RUSSERT: Both sides are at fault?
MS. HUGHES: On both sides. The special interests pushed both parties to the extreme. I think the competitive nature of the news cycle tends to make the debate even more strident, you know, that the most strident quote is the one that ends up on the evening news or in the next morning's newspaper. And so there are a lot of pressures forcing stridency and division here in Washington, and it is polarized and I think that's unfortunate. We all have to work on that.
The italics is mine, of course, but there are two interesting theories that she proposes: first, that special interests have driven the parties to the extreme, and, second, that the 24-seven news cycle encourages conflict and, therefore, division.
Both points have some validity. I am sure it is difficult for pols to pander to their base, especially given the Perots and Naders who are on the wings ready to pull those critical winning percentages in key states. In an interesting way, as the country has become more evenly divided between red and blue, one would think it would drive candidates toward the moderate middle. In fact, it has forced them to engernize their base -- the right and left wings of the parties.
I have not fully considered her contention that the 24-7 media cycle also adds fuel to the fire.
Wow! Do I agree with Karen Hughes on something?
An aside, her outfit on "Meet the Press" was just horrible! What was she thinking?
You can't quite see how horrible it is from this picture, but trust me, it is bad! There are frilly things on the edges of it. And this fashion disaster comes after Mary Matlin's fashion disaster just a few weeks ago. There are no photos of that, shockingly enough!
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