Media Coverage of the President's Absence from the Republican Convention

Eight years with one administration brings America to a point of decision with significance unlike what it has faced in several decades, if ever. Individually, the critical issues confronting America at this point have surfaced before, but not to the degree of confluence that we see today. Major military and political conflict pervaded the first half of the 20th century, but it didn't coincide with an economic crisis as the great depression fell between the two great wars. The fuel crisis that America faced in the 1970s didn't coincide with a military or great economic one as
we see today. How this country and its neighbors on the world stage navigate through the next period will have lasting repercussions. Selecting who leads the world's largest economy and main superpower is a topic of some significance and worthy of media coverage and the attention of all Americans. The most interesting media topic of the week of the Republican Convention was the physical absence of President G. W. Bush. The first incumbent president to be absent from his party's convention since 1968.

National Public Radio's (NPR) September 2nd episode of Fresh Air offered one journalist's opinion for the President's absence. Host Terri Gross interviewed journalist Peter Baker who offered his findings on the co-dependency of President G.W. Bush and Senator John McCain. Baker, a contributor to New York Times Magazine, posits that the contentious relationship between the President and the Senator is a result of their hotly contested run for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2000. Baker believes that Bush needs McCain to help bolster his presidential legacy, while McCain may still be smarting from the unscrupulous attacks he received from Bush advertisements during their 2000 contest.

Given the strained nature of their relationship, President Bush's addressing the Republican Party Convention via satellite may have served the party, the president and McCain well. In the September 3rd issue of USA Today, Richard Wolf reports that the President's absence was a 'mutual decision' between Bush and McCain. The President's staying in the White House out of concern for the Gulf Coast residents facing impact from Hurricane Gustav would help foster goodwill for an area poorly served by the government during Hurricane Katrina. Wolf also reports, "Democrats have tried to tie Bush and McCain together with a campaign called "More of the Same." Any distance, such as Bush's physical absence from the convention, would combat those assertions.

On September 1 while discussing the impact of Bush's physical absence, Politico.com's Alexander Burns and David Mark offer balanced input from convention attendees on the Bush administration's tenure. Some GOP faithful said that Bush meant well during his presidency, but he didn't always live up to the principles that he claimed such as fiscal discipline and social issues. Brian Sullivan, a national committeman from Minnesota, praised Bush for his conservative social views and pro-life stance on abortion. South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds offered his support of the President's decision to go to war. Rounds further said that the budget measures the President took may have been conciliatorily forced upon him in order to maintain a strong position in the war (i.e. in order to get enough votes for more funding for the war he may have had to concede in another area of the budget).

Time Magazine's David von Drehle's coverage of Bush's absence from the convention takes us from Bush's safe house in Texas to his house of quarantine in Washington, D.C. Both settings offer an explanation for his absence from the convention. The former, the President's Crawford, Texas ranch home, offers him security from storms (e.g. Katrina or Gustav) as being too distant from the coast to be impacted by tropical storms and his place of retirement as only a few months remain of his final term in office. The latter, the White House, offered a venue to keep him from contaminating the impact of the convention. Von Drehle cites the damage Bush's approval rating took post Katrina and the more recent rating hits from $4-a-gallon gas prices and the mortgage-related financial crisis. Von Drehle attempts to balance his article by including a Bush success - the recent reduction in oil prices tied to U.S. military success in Iraq's Anbar province. Von Drehle's statement of Bush's success being too little too late in his Presidency could well be said of Drehle's including this positive statement towards the latter part of the article.

Of CNN's group of analysts during the Republican convention, John King came closest to making a pointed comment on Bush's physical absence from the convention. Like Campbell Brown, he commented on the political nature of Laura Bush's in-person comments at the convention as well as the political nature of the President's comments via satellite. King then noted how quickly following the President's speech the Republican programming went to a Ronald Reagan video in order to keep the media from immediately commenting on whether Bush and McCain would be linked and whether the Bush administration may be besetting McCain with any baggage. King managed to avoid being completely locked out of the moment by inserting that brief criticism. King's comments in all were politically neutral in the sense that they didn't make any overt criticism that compared McCain and Obama. His one criticism was that the spot in the White House where Bush addressed the convention was usually used for standing with prime ministers and not necessarily political statements. Pretty benign.

The first week in September offered an opportunity to view whether the purported bias noticed in today's media could be tempered as most of the coverage would have to be devoted to one of America's two major political parties. The outlets mentioned above offered balanced presentations. The Fresh Air segment wasn't polarizing politically and simply offered an unbiased assessment of the Bush-McCain relationship. USA Today likewise was unpolarizing in its coverage by balancing one negative interview with a positive opinion. Similarly, Politico.com drew on the input of a variety of convention attendees who had differing opinions on Bush's time in office. Comparing Fresh Air to the other outlets would be unfair and akin to a comparison of apples and oranges. They are different. Fresh Air host Terri Gross may spend forty minutes interviewing one person whereas the other outlets have to make succinct presentations of what they gather in only a few minutes.

None of the major broadcast television networks (i.e. ABC, CBS, NBC) offered a live broadcast of either political convention nor immediate post-speech commentary. For those dependent on rabbit-ear television reception, a vacuum was created until their evening news offered highlights and analysis. For others in America, the vacuum left by the major networks is being filled in a growing manner by alternative outlets (e.g. cable, the internet, terrestrial and satellite radio). This vacuum has resulted in a wild west media landscape that is at times splintered in as many directions as the pricks on a cactus. With the narrowing of the candidates for president, all these outlets have become more of a service for the American people as they help to further introduce the American public to the candidates (or opinions of the candidates) vying for this land's highest elected office.

Though flavored with opinion - good or bad - these outlets stimulate discussion and further foster democracy by equipping and sometimes entertaining. If the conventions and what transpired leading up to them is any indication, then the next six weeks will offer quite a ride whether your four-legged creature is an elephant or a donkey.


Works Cited


"Bush And McCain, A Rivalry - And Codependency." Fresh Air. NPR. WFSU, Tallahassee. 2 Sept. 2008.

"Election Coverage 2008." CNN. 2 Sept. 2008.

Politico.com. 1 Sept. 2008. Capitol News Company, LLC.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/13039.html

Von Drehle, David. "Briefing: The Moment." Time 15 Sept. 2008. 13.

Wolf, Richard. "Bush praises McCain via satellite." USA Today 3 Sept. 2008:
A1.