firing line - hoover institution€¦ · character ass~ssination campaign against judge robert...

The copyright laws of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. If a user makes a request for, or later uses a photocopy or reproduction (including handwritten copies) for purposes in excess of fair use, that user may be liable for copyright infringement. Users are advised to obtain permission from the copyright owner before any re-use of this material.

Use of this material is for private, non-commercial, and educational purposes; additional reprints and further distribution is prohibited. Copies are not for resale. All other rights reserved. For further information, contact Director, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010

©Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

FIRinG Line GUESTS:

SUBJECT:

9/17/91 #907

L. BRENT BOZELL III MICHAEL KINSLEY

"HOW FAR CAN POLITICAL ADS GO?"

SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

The FIRING LINE television series is a production of the Southern Educational

Communications Association, PO Box 5966, Columbia, SC 29250 and is

transmitted through the facilities of the Public Broadcasting Service. FIRING

LINE can be seen and heard each week through public television and radio

stations throughout the country. Check your local newspapers for channel and

time in your area.

SECA PRESENTS @)

FIRinG Line

HOST:

GUESTS:

SUBJECT:

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.

L. BRENT BOZELL III MICHAEL KINSLEY

"HOW FAR CAN POLITICAL ADS GO'?"

FIR ING LINE is p roduced and direcrerl hy WARREN STEIBEL

This is a transcript of the Firing Line program taped September 17, 1991, in New York City and telecast later by PBS.

SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION


©1 991 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

MR. BUCKLEY: Inasmuch as Mr. Kinsley is serving on this particular program as a full -time contende r rathe r tha n a s t he man who begins the program by leaving a lighted torc h on ~y la~ ,

I return to my role as host and assume the duty of introd~c:n~ my two guests and the subject we will discuss, which is : H e~

far can political advertisements go?

The issue was very directly raised when a few we e ks ag o o ne o: our guests and his political action committee released an a d that asked really whether Senators Kennedy, Biden and Cransto n were morally qualified to pass on the credentials of Clarenc e Thomas to sit on the Supreme Court. The ad has been the subjec t of near-universal denunciation , including by John Sununu and President Bush, but it is widely conjectured that the denunciations were formalistic, done so as not to violate the tribal courtesies with whi ch our leaders tend to protect themselves .

The prime mover of those ads is Brent Bozell III, head of the Media Research Center, which publishes MediaWatch and other materials monitoring the behavior of the media . Mr. Bozell is a graduate of the University of Dallas a nd , I ' m happy to say , the son of one of my sisters . His father, the distinguished Catholic journalist and author L. Brent Bozell , is now retired .

Michael Kinsley is a syndicated co lumnist, an editor of The New Republic, former editor of Harper's. He is a graduate of Harvard, where he majored in sophistry. [ laughter] He went on to do graduate work in Oxford, then back to Harvard, where he took a degree in law . He is regularly seen on this program and on crossfire .

Mr. Kinsley , please proceed to express your indignation .

MR. KINSLEY: Well, I actually agree with you that President Bush was two-faced about this ad of Brent Bozell ' s. Either he maybe actually did mean it when he said he wished this ad wasn ' t running, because it turns out it wasn 't necessary. It l ooks like Clarence Thomas will be approved anyway. But certainly President Bush set the t one and wha t Brent Bozell's ad did was no more insulting to people 's intelligence or the character of America politics than the ads President Bush ran in 1988.

MR. BUCKLEY: You mean what he said about Willie Horton?

MR. KINSLEY: Willie Horton , the flags and furloughs , the Pledge of Allegiance, that who l e business.

MR. BUCKLEY: You mean in the trad ition of daisies and--

MR. KINSLEY: I think yes. You ' re referring to the 1964 Johnson ad, which i n some way s was the origin of this nasty, this tradition we seem t o have of really vulgar , nasty political ads. That was the one of the little girl picking the daisy, imagine President Barry Go ldwater and then suddenly there is a nuclear bomb, There is no question though, that things h ave degenerated. That was a rather isolated episode in the 1960s.

1

© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

I think you can see how far things have degenerated--this example might please you, Mr . Buckley--by reading Joe McGinnis' book, The Selling of the President: 1968. This was a book that was exposing, supposedly, the Richard Nixon campaign as being contrived, dishonest, commercial , all the things we now complain about. However, if you read what he was complaining about at that time, it was things like Richard Nixon's ad which consisted of Nixon sitting at a desk discussing the issue~ were actually scripted beforehand. Nixon actually did severa l takes to m~ke sure he got it right. And these were things that were cons1dered absolutely scandalous . And they were considered scandalously brief , because they only l asted for 60 seconds. By today's standards, in both parties certainly , those ads seem like high-minded political discourse.

MR. BUCKLEY: I think that's correct . On the other hand, I am not sure that it is historically correct to say that the antl-Goldwater ads began a whole vicious approach to politics. I~ may be so th~t it was historically correct that they began it Vla the teleVlSlon med1um, but the kind of stuff that was said about Andrew Jackson, for instance, or Jefferson was certainly as scandalous . But let me ask you. He refers to these as vulgar . Now, politically vulgar acts presumably aren 't engaged in unless they work. So applying the empirical criterion have you any idea whether the ad that you proposed to run "worked " ?

MR. BOZELL: Oh , I think it did. But let me backtrack on two other points first. The White House did not authorize these ads. These were not run by the White House, Michael. I hope you have a great conspiracy working here, but I will say that the president did authorize me to be on this show, so I do have his permission to be on here.

MR. BUCKLEY: Wait a minute . Are you serious?

MR. BOZELL: No , no, not serious at all. [laughter)

MR. KINSLEY: So you're challenging--

MR. BOZELL: I just find it fascinating that so many people are asking, " Did the president authorize you to do this? Was this a wink and a nod?" as if conservatives are subservient to the White House, as if we ask the White House for permission to do the things that we do . We didn't do it. I think the president was crystal clear in his position on this. Certainly John Sununu was crystal clear in his phone call with me . That's the position that they took.

MR. BUCKLEY: And by the way , under many election laws, you are not allowed to solicit the approval of the principal candidate.

MR. BOZELL: That's correct, with independent expenditures. This is not an independent expenditure, but I am sure there were several people at the White House fainting when we did what we did . Now, is this ad vulgar? I find it fascinating, Michael, that the media have devoted possibly hundreds of hours to

2

~happaquiddick in the last 25 years. Millions of words in the printed press talking about Chappaquiddick. But if a conservative takes out an ad and says, " Chappaquiddick, " the bombs go off on the part of the media: "Sleazy , vulgar," a ll the words come out. Why? Because we say what you've been saying for 25 years, except the difference is that we 're conservatives and we're not allowed to do that.

MR. KINSLEY: No, I don 't think that was it. Point number one is, is Chappaquiddick relevant to t he question of whether Clarence Thomas is sitti ng on the Supreme Court? That would be number one. Number two, even in regard to Ted Kennedy, your ad did not restrict itself to Chappaquidd ick. It said, first there was Chappaquiddick, then there were a couple of other things. Then it--

MR. BOZELL: There could have been more.

MR. KINSLEY: --ended with the famous phrase, "And now, Palm Beach."

MR. BOZELL: And there could have been more. (laughter)

MR. KINSLEY: Well, just a second. That struck me as worse than vul gar . That struck me as dishonest. It implied that Ted Kennedy did something wrong or dishonest or dishonorable in Palm Beach. And I put it to you that there is no evidence that he did.

MR. BOZELL: Well, I think--

MR. BUCKLEY: What do you mean there is no evidence? There is sworn statement that he did , that he has tried to obstruct j ustice .

MR. KINSLEY: No , the prosecutors down there have specifically said they are not even considering charging Ted Kennedy with obstruction of justice. They don't even think that's a question.

MR. BOZELL: They said that, but then last week his part-time assistant testified at the very same grand jury that he was instructed to t ell the police--

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.

MR. BOZELL: --that Ted Kennedy was not having lunch--

MR. KINSLEY: Excuse me. You had run these ads l ong before last week. I don't know what happened last week.

MR. BOZELL: You ' re the one that are saying that nothing was going on on this. Look, we're not saying that Ted Kennedy did anything illegal.

MR. KINSLEY: "And now Pa lm Beach ."

3


MR. BOZELL: However, here is a man who postures himself as a devout Roman Catholic .

MR. BUCKLEY: I don't think he does , by the way .

MR. BOZELL: --who takes-- Oh, I hope he doesn ' t any more bec~use a man who goes on Good Friday, the holiest--one o f, the hol~est _ of holy days for the Catholic Church--to go on a pub crawl w~th h~ s neph ew and--

MR. KINSLEY: Are you asserting--

MR. BOZELL: - - hi s son, I guess it was, to go pick up women , and then says, " I am going to si t in judgement of the values a nd the ~ntegr1ty of one Clarence Thomas. "

MR. KINSLEY:

MR. BOZELL: man- -

MR. KINSLEY:

Are you saying-- Are you saying that the -

Especially, especially , Michael, when this

-- fact that Ted Kennedy decided--

HR . BOZELL: --when this man undertook the most scurrilous--

MR. BUCKLEY: One at a time, please. This isn't Crossfire. [laughter]

MR. KINSLEY: This isn't Crossfire, yes .

MR. BOZELL: --th is man undertook the most scurri lous character ass~ssination campaign agains t Judge Robert Bark--you don ' t agree w1th that--in 1987 with his "Robert Bark's America" speech.

MR. BUCKLEY: No, he would agree with that.

MR. BOZELL : Well, I hope so. I h ope he wou ld agree that it was.character assassination. These same people their same all~e7 , sa~d, " We:re going to Bark Thomas again: " And our point was, ~f you're go1ng to t ry t o do it again, if you're going to put value7 a~d ~ntegr1ty on the line , we ' re going to talk about yours . D1d ~t work? I submit it did work . I s ubmit that there hasn ' t been the level of intensity against Thomas tha t there could have been. As The New York Times reported "The ghost of Robert Bark hung heavily over these-- " '

MR. BUCKLEY: That ' s an instrumental question. It has nothing to do wi th whether it should have been done or whether it shouldn 't have been done. Did it in fact cool the prosecutorial furies--

MR. KINSLEY: I think it might have scared-

MR. BUCKLEY: --of these people?

MR. KINSLEY: --Ted Kennedy a little bit, might have scared

4

Joe Eiden a little bit. Whether you think that ' s a good thing or not, an honorable thing or not, is a different question. But did it have some effect? Yes , it probably did .

MR. BUCKLEY: Well , that ' s a very important admission in the light of your denunciation as vulgar . Now, if that which is vulgar, which has to do with commonness, works , then our quarrel is with democ ratic methods, right? Democratic protocol.

MR. KINSLEY: No, I thought these ads were vulgar . I don 't thirk that that is necessarily what is wrong with them from a democratic point of view. Nor do I think that the mere fact that an ad is negative is necessarily--or even logical l y puts it beyond the pale. People talk about this category as negative advertisi ng. Saying what's wrong with your opponent, you r politica l opponent in a n electoral race, or even in a broader sense of this thing, as in the case of Brent Bozell's ad , is part of democracy . In a way , it is a more democratic act to vote no, say , "I am against this guy. Throw the burn out, " or "Don 't put him in, " than it is to vote yes. So the problem is not negativity. The problem is honesty. Is the ad honest? Does it say something honest? But I think you have to define honesty not in a literal sense but in a broader sense.

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes .

MR. KINSLEY: And in the broader sense, I think Brent Bozell ' s ad--also in the narrower sense, for that matter, but certai nly in the broader sense --was dishonest. And I think many of the ads that distress people that I use the word "vulgar" about, the real problem is a sort of dishonesty . They ' re communicating a message which is not true.

MR. BUCKLEY: Let me ask you this . You 're a lawyer . The who le doctrine of impeaching credibility, is i t relevant to this discussion? I . e . , you have here a panel of people who say yes or no to th is nominee of the president. And they say yes or no having to do with their appraisal of his judicial inclinations, his powers of reasoning and also his character . Now, if this were a prosecutorial session and you were represent ing Cl arence Thomas, would you at any point have thought it relevant to impeach the credibility of his interrogators?

MR. KINSLEY: Sure . I th ink as a technical matter, as a lawyer, whether you could bring in something like Chappaquiddick to impeach the other side is highly questionab l e . But Chappaquiddick is the strongest case for your side . If you want to say, " Look, the question of character is relevant. These people are judging Clarence Thomas. " But the other matters, it seems to me, are completely irrelevant in terms of judging these people ' s c haract er as it relates t o Clarence Thomas. To make a big deal out of the fact that Joe Eiden once gave a speech which h e lifted several paragraphs from Neil Kinnock , when no politician in America writes his own speeches to begin with, and to suggest, in a rather broad- brush way, you say--I believe your ad said, "Found gui lty of p l ag iarism," making it sound like a terrible crime , that this somehow makes Joe Eiden ineligible to

5


judge Cl arence Thomas--

MR. BUCKLEY: Wel l, he thought it was so heavy an offense that he dropped out of the race.

MR. KINSLEY: He was a fool to do that. And that was the fault of the press, too, which made a bigger deal out of it then they should have .

MR. BOZELL: He publicly admitted that he had plagiarized it . There is a world of difference between having a speechwriter write your speech, Michael , and taking someone else ' s speech and repeating it as your own. You know that.

MR. KINSLEY : I think there- -

MR. BOZELL: We talk about the vulgarity--

MR. KINSLEY: I think there is a less of a difference in that than you're acknowledging .

MR. BOZELL: We talk about the vulgarity of advertising. we talk about the vulgarity of politics . It strikes me that these hearings are rather interesting from the standpoint that the judges profess to be undertaking some form of epistemology in these hearings. They want to learn about the nominee. So much do they want to learn that 70 times , I believe, in one day they asked the same question about abortion. Is this in fact senators judging the qualifications of a Supreme Court nominee- -

MR. BUCKLEY: Or is a public prosecution?

MR. BOZELL: --or is it a prosecution?

MR. KINSLEY: Well, there's a third- -

MR. BOZELL: Is it them playing politics on this?

MR. KINSLEY: There's a third category, wh ich is not merely judging a man's qualifications, but judging his judicial philosophy. Do senators have the right to judge a person ' s judicial philosophy before they approve his nomination to the Supreme Court? I think yes . The president clearly takes that into consideration. Why can 't the Senate take that into consideration?

MR. BUCKLEY: By the way, I agree with you and I agree with your column on the subject. I only wish that in that particular column you had made fun of these same Democrats who denounced the Republicans in 1984 for saying that they were going to look into the political philosophy of anybody they named to the courts.

MR. KINSLEY: Well, everyone has tried to have it both ways on this issue, dating back at least to the 1960s, with the nom~nees of that time. There was a very good piece in Newsweek pointing out that Strom Thurmond was claiming he

6

was going to interrogate Abe Fortas, I believe, extremely carefully about his judicial philosophy, and Thurgood Marshall, for that matter, about his judicial philosophy, now saying two and a half decades later, "How dare anyone raise questions of judicial philosophy of Clarence Thomas?"

MR. BOZELL: Michael, that 's half the story . The other half of the story was that in 1967 your champion, Ted Kennedy, also made a statement saying that one ought not to be questioning a judicial nominee about questions that are before the court or are about to be before the court and he thought that that was grounded in sound legal precedent .

MR. KINSLEY: Look, I think that what you have here is--

MR. BUCKLEY: He's not his hero, by the way.

MR. KINSLEY: --is-- That's for sure .

MR. BOZELL: Pardon me?

MR. BUCKLEY: He's not his hero.

MR. KINSLEY: It ' s half a matter of hypocrisy on both sides and half a matter, I think, of legitimate confusion on all sides about the question of what are the standards by which the Senate is supposed to judge nominees for all offices, but especially the Supreme Court .

MR. BUCKLEY: Let's face this point. If this is not a judicial inquiry in the sense, say, that the New York Bar Association would quiz any one of us who wanted to be a lawyer and they wanted to find out whether we were competent to practice law, then it's probably true that it is a matter of political exchange. It is a long polemic with enough juridical filigree to satisfy people that you are really talking about the law instead of talking about whether you can keep this guy out of the way . Everybody in the entire world concedes that Senator Heflin decided to go against Bork because he got the letter from the nth black voter saying, "Unless you go against Bork, we are not going to vote for you to go back to the Senate. "

MR. KINSLEY: Right.

MR. BUCKLEY: Now , if that indeed is what ' s going on there, don't all of the relevant instruments by wh ich political exchanges are made become relevant?

MR. KINSLEY: Well, look, let me see if I understand your point. If your point is that if my system, my desired system of Senate confirmation, takes hold, which is that judicial philosophy becomes legi timate subject of debate and a condition of approval by the Senate , then the whole matter does become more political and becomes a matter for voting and therefore becomes a matter of the general tools of the political system .

MR. BUCKLEY: I would say it would depend on the abiding

7


protoco s . If you knew that the senators would not prejudge the case with reference to po l i tical phi l osophy, and if you knew ~hat the y ~ould no~ engage in s uch enormities as Kennedy engaged in aga inst Bcrk in 1987, the n you might say , " Okay , we have t o play by those rules ."

MR. KINSLEY: Look , the basis on whic h senators s hould judge a nominee for the court should be on the basis of the ir l egal philosophy, not en their political philosophy. Maybe that i s a hopeless ideal. Once you have senators making tha t kind of decision, especially whe n, as you say , they are concerned about the vo te rs, that is going to be a political decision. My problem is not that Brent ' s ads are any worse than the ads for regular political races. I think they're just as bad . And I think that wha tever standard that I wou ld apply to an ad for a Supreme Court contest, I wou l d apply to the regular political elec~ion contes t t oo .

MR . BOZELL: Let me qua rrel with that for a moment here . CJse ycu r wo rd "vulgar, " I believe--

MR. KINSLEY: That was a mi stake, I think. [ l aughter ]

MR. BOZELL: It really was, Michae l . To use your term

To

" vu lgar , " I think it ' s a vulgar affront to the intelligence of the public when a candidate runs an ad showing h im rolling on his liv ing r oom rug with his puppy or going for a long wa l k by a lake , casting a fishing rod --

MR. KINSLEY: You ' re speaking of George Bush ' s ads in 1988 .

MR. BOZELL: No , I ' m talking about a cross- section of t he political spectrum--and then saying , " Vote for Ca ndidate X. He ' s one of us. " That kind of advertising , tha t Madison Avenue advertising, teaches the public nothing. I think you ' d agree with that. And I think that is an insult. That is an insult t o the public .

MR. KINSLEY: I agree with you about that .

MR. BOZELL: I think , now where negative campaign ing is concerned , I think there are two different kinds of negative ads . There is a negat ive ad that attacks somebody on his record, and I think that is not only fair game , I think that is advisable . And those peop l e that wring their hands and say, "We ought not t o be t alking about people's records, " really ought to be dismissed. Now, why did we get i nto anoth e r arena? Why did we get into the personal lives of these senators? I t is precisely because t hese senat ors got into the personal life of Robert Bark, no t with truth, but with fiction, with attacks , with people like Ted Kennedy saying that in Robert Bork's America , rogue police were going to break your doors down in the midd le of the night.

MR. KINSLEY: Look, that may have been untrue . was --

8

It cert ainly

MR. BOZELL: It certainly was untrue.

MR. KINSLEY: --an exaggeration.

MR. BOZELL: It was untrue .

MR. KINSLEY: But I don ' t see how that ' s any comment or. Robert Bork ' s personal life . It' s cer t ainly not try ing t c ~ake an issue of how l ate he chooses to go out dr ink ing on Gooct Friday as you seem to want to .

MR. BOZELL: It i s no t t o say , you are not packaging Robert Bark as some kind of a heinous monster when you say that he ' s going to take away voting rights, when under his America blacks are going to sit at segrega t ed lunch counte r s? That ' s not a personal attack?

MR. KINSLEY: What you are sayi ng, you are sayi ng, "I f Robert Bork becomes a member of the Sup r eme Court , certa in of his decisions will have ce rtai n practical imp l ications for peop l e ' s lives whi c h you may or may not like. " And that may true or maybe not, but it i s a discussion of his philosophy . may b e an inaccurate discussion of his philosophy --

MR. BOZELL: Michael, Michael --

MR. KINSLEY: --but it ' s not a discussion of his personal l ife .

be It

MR. BOZELL: Mic hae l, come now. Wou ld any of Robert Bark ' s decis i ons have segregated b l acks? Wou ld he have given license to rogue police to break down doors in the middle of the night?

MR. KINSLEY: Well , Robert Bark never did give a convincing explanation of why he could support the 1954 Brown desegregation decision given everything else h e said . So I think that was a grotesque exaggerat ion. Yes , I ag r ee with you, but that ha s nothing to with att acking his personal life .

MR. BOZELL: And they did no t pa c kage Robert Bork as some evi l threat to the wel l - being of the republic?

MR. KINSLEY: Sure . I think Robert Bork would have been--

MR. BOZELL: We ' re not going t o get into Robert Bork.

MR. BUCKLEY: If I may say so-- Let me help you a ll out . What you are saying 1s that an attack on his l ega l philosophy a nd ins isting that he woul d bring us back to the St one Age was not personal, which is true .

MR. KINSLEY: Right.

MR. BUCKLEY: On the other hand, they also asked what kind of movie cassettes he rented from the loca l store .

MR. KINSLEY: No, that ' s not true. A loca l newspaper in

9


washington got its hands on his movie cassette t apes and printed it. It had nothing to do with the people who were actua lly trying to keep him off the Supreme Court.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well , it was part of the general offensive. We're not saying--

MR. KINSLEY: No I don't think that ' s fa ir. Just as I wouldn 't tar Geo~ge Bush ' s campaign to get Clarence Thomas o~ the supreme court with everyth ing Brent Boze~l does , ~ certa lnly wou l dn 't tar even Teddy Kennedy with everythlng the clty paper in Washington does.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well , I didn't and he didn 't. We w~re ta~king . about the nature of the offensive carried out agaln s t hlm, whlc h was to a certain extent--to a certain extent--personal , th~ugh primarily legal. They said anybody who would not v ote agalnst Griswold for all intents and purposes, wants to be a presence in the room when this--

MR. KINSLEY: They failed to make the key distinction between saying a desirable law is not in the Constitution and saying , " I'd be against hav ing it as a statute. "

MR. BUCKLEY: That's right.

MR. KINSLEY: That is an offense agains~ ~olitica~ honesty I which the campa ign against Bork was deflnl tely gullty of. think that's a long way from that to running a TV ad that says, "And now Palm Beach. "

MR. BOZELL: Let me ask you, Michael, when the People for the American way came out with that vici?us attack on Robert Bork you denounced it in The New Republ~c and I commend you for that. Why didn ' t senators Kennedy , Bide~ , Metzenbaum, et cetera, et cetera, why didn't they den~unce lt? Why do you think they didn ' t do it? Don 't you thlnk that they, as the champions of these organizations, should have spoken out and said, "We will hav e none of that here"?

MR. BUCKLEY: Good question, yes .

MR. KINSLEY: sure . All right . Sure they should have.

MR. BOZELL: Or did they ride the wave?

MR. KINSLEY: I agree with you about that . They should have denounced it.

MR. BOZELL: Then you r e ally do like our ad.

MR. KINSLEY: No . How does that follow?

MR. BUCKLEY: After all, our people denounce him. [laughter]

MR. KINSLEY: Yes, and he says they ' re doing it with a

10

wink . Would it be okay if they denounced it and then the people for it came on TV and said, "Well, they had to denounce us, but we're independent and we're doing it anyway . We t hink they're doing it with a wink; they really approve of it ."

MR. BOZELL: As I told The New York Times, if anyone thinks that that is a wink and a nod that we got from the White House, they don't understand the meaning of a cuss and a spit . I think that's a more accurate description of what we got from some sources in the White House. And again, Michael, you really ought not to be raising the spectre that the White House was beh ind us. Nobody ought to do that.

MR. KINSLEY: No , I said I am willing to believe that George Bush honestly didn't want to see your ads running because, as I say, he didn't really need them to get Thomas approved . I mean , Thomas is not going to be approved by the voters who watched your ad . He ' s going to be approved by the very senators who might have been offended by your ad. I think you're actually--

MR. BUCKLEY: But you said they were effective a moment ago, 20 minutes ago. You said--

MR. KINSLEY: Well, they were . effective--

I could see that . They were

MR. BUCKLEY: Well , what does effective mean if it doesn ' t influence some senators?

MR. KINSLEY: It turned out they were gauging them just as the question of how they would help Clarence Thomas, which I do not think was even entirely Brent Bozell's mot ive . They were a gamble . They might have hurt, they might have helped. I think in the end they did help slightly.

MR. BOZELL: What was my motive?

MR. KINSLEY: I think it was partly to help Clarence Thomas, partly to get some attention for your group, partly to raise money, the same motives that drive peop l e for--combination of motives--that drive people for any other political interest group.

MR. BOZELL: That ' s another interesting point that's raised. So much attention was given to the fact that this was nothing but a pub l icity stunt. Well, the first rule of political activism , as you ought to know, Mike, is that you try to obtain as much pub l icity for that whic h you are doing as you can . The fact that we got several million dollars of free publicity, guilty as charged. On the question of fu ndraising, I wish we had been able to see just how effective we were going to be on this, because I would have been in there to open the mail and I would have raised millions of dollars. Unfortunate l y we weren't ready for it. But for people t o say, "Oh, it was only to raise money; it was on l y to get publicity ," is--

MR. BUCKLEY: But he didn't say "only." He said that was

11


one motive .

MR. BOZELL: That ' s right, but others have said that. As a matter of fact, a coup l e of people from the White House said that.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, I have heard people whose names I won't mention say that in their judgement, to judge this particular ad in the con t ext of what goes on and is permitted to go on, is morally moot , i.e ., you can say, this is more outrageous than most or you can say it's ' less outrageous than many others . The interesting question they asked was the instrumental one: Is it something in fact that is going to affect the vote of the marginal senator in this direction or the other direction? Might it in fact infuriate some and arouse those spirits of fraternity that are sort of protective in nature? And we don ' t yet know the answer to that, do we?

MR. KINSLEY: No . Surely you want to ask , though, do you want this to be a standard part of issues that are not electoral in the narrow sense, s uch as Supreme Court confirmation battles in the future? And I understand Brent Bozell's position to be that he actually doesn't want it to. This was sort of a shot across the bow in the hope of achieving mutual retreat.

MR. BUCKLEY: That ' s right. If they would behave , you would behave. [laught er]

MR. BOZELL: As a matter of fact, the day after we launched this wickedness, we put out a statement and challenged all those organizations that said that they were going to " Bark" Thomas--their words, not mine--to a ceasefire--that they back off from everything they were doing, we would back off from everything we we re doing . Interestingly, the People for the American Way carne back: No deal. NOW, no deal . NARAL , no dice . Ron Brown for the DNC , no deal.

MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you, Brent Bozell; thank you, Michael Kinsley of The New Republic ; thank you , ladies and gentlemen of the College of St. Elizabeth.

12


FIRING LINE NATIONAL UNDERWRITERS

John M. Olin Foundation

Mobil Oil Corporation

Farley Industries

May Founda tion

Monarch Financial Services, Inc .

Paine Webber

Dow Chemical

Estee Lauder Foundation

Irby Construction

firing line - hoover institution€¦ · character ass~ssination campaign against judge robert...

Documents