Why political punditry reminds us that entertainment comes before debate
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The critically acclaimed play, ‘Best of Enemies’ is now running in London’s West End. It charts the beginnings of TV political commentary and shows how from its origins, entertainment came before intellectual discussion
A good political debate on television is hard to come by. Politicians and commentators go head-to-head not to discuss ideas but to deliver soundbites. Appearances are designed to be clipped for distribution on social media. That is the name of the game – delivering your message and hammering it again and again.
You might ask if a more interesting format is possible, where debate was genuine and free-flowing, and featured true experts unshackled from the message discipline of the party machine.
This very thing was tried in the early days of TV political punditry, back in 1968.
1968 was one of those ‘unprecedented’ years. It saw the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., the escalation of the Vietnam War, mass unrest caused by students in France, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The birth of political commentary on TV was hardly as momentous as the major political events of ’68, but in its own way, its effect is felt just as keenly today.
It is the subject of James Graham’s Best of Enemies, which is now playing at the Noël Coward Theatre, just up the road from Audley’s offices. This brilliant production charts the travails of ABC News as the station attempts to find novel ways to capture audience share during the run up to the 1968 United States presidential election.
The result of an ABC ‘brainstorm’ is to invite two political commentators or ‘public intellectuals’ to have a series of armchair debates during the Republican and Democratic parties’ national conventions. The two chosen were the writer, wit and sometime Democratic congressional candidate Gore Vidal, and conservative author and presenter of political programme Firing Line William F Buckley.
Watching recordings of their series of debates today makes for fascinating viewing. It really does feel dated. The TV anchor throws to Buckley and Vidal, sitting in armchairs, who begin by embarking on lengthy, grandiloquent monologues reflecting on the main action of the day from the convention floor. While one man talks, the other politely listens, then responds. It all seems so well-mannered.
But as the 10-minute discussions move on, the somewhat professorial style is punctuated by the two men delivering childish digs and jibes at one another. Interruptions are frequent and they talk over each other. Suddenly the style feels much more contemporary.
The intense dislike Buckley and Vidal had for one another boiled over during the Democratic convention in Chicago. The two were debating whether it was acceptable for a protestor to brandish the flag of the Viet Cong, as had happened during demonstrations in the city. The exchange reached this infamous crescendo:
Vidal: As far as I’m concerned, the only pro- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself.
Buckley: Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddam face and you’ll stay plastered.
It caused an outrage then, as it would today. But it didn’t kill the format.
Mercifully, political commentators now have sufficient restraint to not call each other Nazis, attack each other for their sexuality, or threaten physical violence.
Yet otherwise, the sophistication of political punditry hasn’t grown much at all. We still see pundits facing off on TV in a similar fashion to Buckley and Vidal. Programmes like Question Time are still going strong.
There remains a tendency to organise debates between someone left-wing and someone right-wing in the interests of ‘balance’. But of course, that doesn’t mean you end up with the most incisive debate or a discussion that gets to the very heart of the issue. Most people – the viewing public – are not sufficiently doctrinaire on most issues to find themselves clearly on the left or on the right.
The trouble with political debate is that it too often makes the gulf between political parties seem much bigger than it actually is. A producer might argue that two political pundits nodding in agreement with each other is not likely to make interesting television. It is much more exciting to have a slanging match and to court controversy.
None of this will be new to regular views of news and political programming. But it is interesting to observe how long this has been the case. The truth is, ABC profited from the debates because of the schoolboy name-calling and attempts at one-upmanship. There’s a distinct irony here: it is the anti-intellectual nature of the Buckley v Gore debates that led to ABC’s success, not two political heavyweights providing incisive analysis.
The implicit message from Best of Enemies seems to be that there must be a way of getting better political debate. Buckley and Vidal are portrayed as self-interested, more concerned with personal publicity and point-scoring than improving political discourse. Even ABC was happy to describe them as ‘guest controversialists’.
Robert Gordon, who produced a 2015 documentary about the Buckley-Vidal rivalry, bemoaned the lack of public intellectuals on television today and said more space should be made for them on networks.
It is a lofty aim but as those debates showed, even the most revered thinkers can’t help but punch below the belt.
Television is about entertainment. That’s as true today as it was in 1968. Intellectually rigorous debates are non-existent. Instead, we have short segments optimised for social media sharing.
Like it or not, that is the game that TV commentators have to play to get their fee and their face on the networks.
Even Vidal and Buckley knew this back in 1968. As Gore Vidal’s character remarks to Buckley in the final scene of Best of Enemies after their series of debates concludes, “well, we certainly gave them their money’s worth.”
By Rolf Merchant, Director at Audley.