Professional Documents
Culture Documents
THE PROVOCATEURS
I
N THE MOVIE The American President, actor Michael Douglas
plays a president who walks into the White House briefi ng
room and delivers a powerful response to a political oppo-
nent’s personal attacks on his character. “We have serious
problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them,”
he begins. “And whatever your particular problem is, I promise
you Bob [his opponent] is not the least bit interested in solving
it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making
you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it . . . [so he
can] win elections.” In the fi nal line of the speech, he calls out
Bob: “This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen
minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd and I am the
president!”
Like all good works of fiction, that scene is so memorable
because it touches on something so real.
Today’s provocateurs in politics and the media seed con-
flict everywhere. But nowhere do they show a genuine interest
in bringing Americans together to achieve positive results. If
they did, they might be out of a job, after all. We are no longer
living in the 24-7 news cycle. This new era is being called the
“1,440-7” news cycle, where media are competing for the au-
dience’s attention every minute of every day. And one surefi re
way to get attention in the 1,440-7 news world is to say some-
thing outrageous. As a result, we have an entire graduate class
of professional provocateurs. We all know them. They are my
friends, my colleagues, and occasionally my adversaries in the
media. Rush Limbaugh. Rachel Maddow. Sean Hannity. Law-
rence O’Donnell. Glenn Beck. Even my colleague and antispin
meister Bill O’Reilly has been accused of the role, although I
fi nd his show balanced in a way few talk shows on the Left or
Right can match.
As is true of the medium, talk-show hosts are entertain-
ers as much as they are commentators, and being bland as
toast wins neither reviews nor ratings. Whether on the Left or
the Right, whether on MSNBC or Fox News, each is aware
of their target audience. Each offers provocative commen-
tary that grabs our attention and fi res up debate. The prob-
lem is that talk-show hosts aren’t on the air to compromise
or bring opposing sides together; they have a strong point of
view, which they fiercely express. By their very nature they
are designed to spark debate, not search for answers; focus our
concerns, not reach a bipartisan compromise. But in sparking
debate that plays off of our fears and concerns, they also act to
drive out rational discussion and reasoned debate. Their very
function as hosts and provocateurs can serve to drive us apart.
The influence of talk-show hosts on today’s political cul-
ture is pervasive and worth exploring in more detail. Some
have called such pundits and provocateurs perpetual conflict
real debate with new ideas and hope for compromise as much
as for confi rmation of the beliefs they already hold. Their audi-
ences are captivated by the explosive anger they see on the air,
arousing their own anger and fr ustration.
This phenomenon has reached the point where our pro-
vocateur culture inhibits the functions of government. Our
public servants increasingly respond fi rst to the loudest voices
behind the biggest microphones, who can make them or break
them in the opinion polls and at the ballot box. The result is
a chronic hardening of political views that is destroying the
flexibility needed for effective democracy. But today’s politi-
cians feel they have litt le choice but to play along. After all, the
prophets of doom and destruction get people to attend rallies,
to give money to politicians, and to get out and vote. Candi-
dates running for office, and even those politicians in elected
office now, fi nd it to their advantage to mimic the screaming,
hectoring, and fi nger-pointing instead of looking for compro-
mise and solutions. Anyone who varies from their party’s hard
line is condemned and ultimately muzzled.
The First Amendment to the Constitution gives everyone
the right to speak without fear of government censorship or
reprisal. It allows me to earn a living doing what I love to
do—talking and writing about politics. Of course, it does not
guarantee there will be an audience when I exercise that right.
Sometimes bells and whistles, fi reworks and sparkles are
needed to attract an audience. Sometimes we need political
theater to get us into our seats. But this need also creates pro-
grams with attitude and opinion. Most of the programming
day at Fox News Channel is taken up with news presented by
working journalists collecting the facts and presenting com-
director, the president led the nation with bold language and
powerful settings for his speeches. He stood at the Berlin Wall
to challenge Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev with the line,
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” He did not hesitate to
label the Soviet Union “the evil empire.” He antagonized his
liberal critics by talking about poor women as welfare queens
in “pink Cadillacs,” taking the bold economic position that if
the rich got richer the poor would also be helped because “a
rising tide lifts all boats.” Consideration of one Reagan nomi-
nee for the Supreme Court, Robert Bork, transformed tele-
vised Senate confi rmation hearings into a stage for political
fights over abortion, race, gun control, and every other hot-
button issue. As noted earlier, during the Bork hearings, Sena-
tor Ted Kennedy unleashed his own inflammatory attack on
the nominee. “Robert Bork’s America,” the senator said, “is
a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abor-
tions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue
police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids,
schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers
and artists could be censored at the whim of the government,
and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fi n-
gers of millions of citizens.”
Talk shows began to combine the techniques of news pro-
grams with entertainment shows. Phil Donahue’s TV show,
which was syndicated nationally for a record twenty-six years,
set the standard for putting serious conversations on the air in
the afternoon, but his show also became known for tackling
taboo subjects and bringing lightning-rod personalities on to
discuss them. Up-and-coming TV producers followed in his
footsteps and often took the format to greater extremes. Ger-
aldo Rivera had his nose broken on an episode of his talk show
on air the next day wearing a shirt that he said was stained
with Dr. King’s blood. Th roughout the next several decades,
his public statements and appearances on TV and radio spoke
of his ambition to become the next Dr. King. By the 1988
presidential campaign, Jackson was widely acknowledged as
the “president of Black America,” a meaningless title except
in its power to command the attention of the media and win
Jackson his own cable TV show.
Pat Buchanan, a former aide to President Nixon, positioned
himself as a social conservative and a man of principle willing
to lead the charge in what he called “the culture wars.” It was
Buchanan who had coined the term “silent majority.”
Buchanan became a regular on political TV and radio
shows and eventually landed his own. He was one of the origi-
nal cohosts of the cable TV shouting match Crossfire, which
created the spit-flying, barbed-put-down, Left-versus-Right
template for political panels and programs that have come
since. He ran a lucrative newsletter aimed at conservatives
seeking hard-line right-wing views.
Like Jesse Jackson, Buchanan made a run for president. In
1992 he used his hard-right stands on social issues to attack
President Bush as a political moderate who made “backroom”
deals with Democrats and did not deserve a second term.
Ross Perot, like Jackson and Buchanan, also ran for presi-
dent. In an amazing turn, the wealthy corporate executive ran
as a populist, a man trained by his success in business to get
things done. The hero and protagonist of a best-selling book
and TV series, On the Wings of Eagles, about how he organized
the rescue of employees being held hostage overseas, Perot
presented himself in the news media as a serious leader. He
and make the most outrageous attacks, who garner the high-
est television ratings, the largest radio audiences, and the most
Web site traffic. They net lucrative book contracts and receive
rapturous standing ovations at political conferences. And they
have discovered they can make or break like-minded political
candidates with their commentary and endorsements. Voices
of moderation and calm persuasion have a hard time being
heard over the loud, grating voices of today’s political provo-
cateurs. And the Internet and the communications platforms
it has created—from Facebook to blogs—have supported the
emergence of even more provocateurs: people paid for scream-
ing out any controversial idea, any conspiracy theory. Most
of these agitators act without fear of being held to account
for distortions or outright lies. When challenged on the facts,
they run behind the First Amendment and charge that their
freedom of speech is being taken away. The acolytes in their
audience could care less about spin and distortion—unless it
is committed by their political foes. They just want to hear a
rousing speech by a talk-show host who agrees with them.
This psychological phenomenon is one surprising result of
technology’s ability to deliver more cable channels, more radio
stations, infi nite Web sites, and Twitter feeds. With the greater
variety of platforms to get news and opinion, most readers,
viewers, and listeners are drawn to platforms and personalities
of their choice, in the same way hometown audiences become
fans of a baseball team. They believe their team can do no
wrong. They revel in the company of like-minded thinkers.
They really don’t want to hear news that makes them question
their political prejudices. They don’t want opinions that chal-
lenge the logic of their political thinking by giving a contradic-
black caller to “take the bone out of your nose and call me
back.” His take on the majority of black Americans identifying
with the Democratic Party? “They’re only 12 percent of the
population. Who the hell cares?” One time he remarked that
all composite pictures of criminals look like Jesse Jackson. A
big football fan, he nonetheless disparaged the large number
of professional players who are black by saying: “The NFL all
too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips
without any weapons.” This episode was cited as one of the
reasons NFL power brokers blocked Limbaugh’s attempt to
buy an ownership stake in the St. Louis Rams football team in
2009. After the plan fell through, liberal comedian and talk-
show host Bill Maher joked that this had dashed Limbaugh’s
lifelong dream of one day owning black people.
Limbaugh’s comedic talent, his mimicry, his use of music,
and his buffoonlike boast that he is taking on the Left with
“half my brain tied behind my back” led the New York Times to
describe him as a “vaudevillian.” When Michael Steele, chair-
man of the Republican Party, described the radio talk-show
host as merely “an entertainer” who stirred up his audience
with “incendiary” and “ugly” comments, he found himself del-
uged with rebukes from the Rush “ditto heads” and threatened
with a loss of fi nancial support for the party. So despite Steele’s
political standing within the party, he bowed his head, offered
a personal apology to “El Rushbo,” and appeared chastened,
even abject, when he beseeched the entertainer to go easy on
him. As President Obama entered the White House at a time
of war, terror threats, and economic crisis, Limbaugh baldly
said, “I hope he fails.” He later tried to explain that he was
talking only about the president’s liberal policies, but the un-
had written a second book, titled Why Not Me?, a satirical ac-
count of a fictional Franken campaign for president. And in
one of those bizarre moments when life imitates absurdist art,
Franken actually ran in 2008 for a real U.S. Senate seat in his
home state of Minnesota and won in a very close race over a
Republican incumbent. In the Senate, he made news when he
rolled his eyes and made faces of disgust while Republican Sen-
ate minority leader Mitch McConnell spoke in opposition to a
Democratic nominee to the Supreme Court. That prompted
McConnell to rebuke him with the comment “This isn’t Satur-
day Night Live, Al.” (Franken later wrote a handwritten letter
of apology to McConnell for using his comic training on the
floor of the Senate when real issues were being debated.) But
what was astounding was the elevation of Franken, a man best
known for clowning and political satire, a man with no prior
political experience, to a seat in the U.S. Senate. Franken may
now be maturing in the job, but his background is as a heckler
and provocateur.
There is a vast constellation of stars like Limbaugh and
Franken now blanketing the media and politics. On the Left
there is Michael Moore, the most successful documentary
fi lmmaker of all time. He is a folk hero of the American Left
who is praised on college campuses, on the liberal cable chan-
nels, and in the progressive netroots community. Arianna
Huffi ngton, the Republican pundit turned liberal fi rebrand,
created an incredibly successful Web site, the Huffi ngton Post,
which provides liberals with news and opinion. The Huffi ng-
ton Post has been so successful that she was able to sell it to
AOL for $315 million earlier this year. Lawrence O’Donnell,
one of MSNBC’s most popular liberal commentators, now
hosts the network’s 8:00 p.m. show, which competes with Bill
O’Reilly.
On the Right, Rush Limbaugh’s legacy has spawned a
plethora of conservative talk-radio hosts who have followed
in his path: Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham,
Mark Levin, Neal Boortz, and Mike Gallagher. Each one has
achieved success by parlaying his or her radio show into tele-
vision appearances and book deals. Perhaps the most fasci-
nating example is Glenn Beck, who attracts the third-biggest
audience in conservative talk radio, behind Limbaugh and
Hannity. Like Limbaugh, Beck never graduated from college
and had a checkered career as a disc jockey playing pranks
and hit records. Beck began his political talk show in 2000
on a Tampa, Florida, AM station, mixing conservatism and
conspiracy theories. In dark, whispered voices he claimed lib-
erals were plotting to destroy America, while also confessing
to his life as a recovering alcoholic and conveying occasional
religious messages.
In addition to his radio show, with a weekly audience of
about ten million listeners, Beck had a 5:00 p.m. show on Fox
News that garnered higher ratings than the combined ratings
for prime-time programs on CNN and MSNBC. His books
instantly catapult to number one on the New York Times best-
seller lists. Though not as partisan as Limbaugh, Beck’s mes-
sage is clearly conservative and highly critical of the Democrats
and President Obama. He famously remarked that the presi-
dent was a “racist” who had a “deep-seated hatred of white
people.” In fairness, he apologized and retracted that remark
later. But he routinely calls the president a socialist, a commu-
nist, and a Marxist and has likened him to Adolf Hitler. He