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The Dangers Of A Talk Show Presidency
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10786 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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3 / 1993 |
2,079 Words |
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Terry Eastland
Terry Eastland, resident fellow at the Ethics and Public
Policy Center in Washington, D.C., is author of Energy in the
Executive: The Case for the Strong Presidency (Free
Press). |
The 1992 presidential campaign has justly been called the "talk show campaign." Will we now see a "talk show presidency?" During the transition, Bill Clinton's advisers hinted at it. If Clinton does show up on Larry King or Oprah, or perhaps on Arsenio Hall, saxophone again in hand, what will it mean? The obvious answer is that Clinton wants to be close to the people, and that he regards the great variety of radio and television talk shows as a means of achieving that. But this answer begs a number of questions, among them: Why President Clinton wants to be close to the people? and How well--or badly--can a talk show presidency serve a president or fit into a constitutional order that places a premium on deliberative democracy? Inevitably, the prospect of a talk show presidency invites deeper inquiry.
Presidential history may be divided into two halves--from George Washington to Theodore Roosevelt, and from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. What distinguishes the two periods is that early presidents generally were not rhetorical, in the sense of trying to lead the people through popular speechifying, while most of the later presidents were rhetorical, going to the people to rally support for their programs. The "rhetorical presidency" is how presidential scholars refer to this remarkable institutional development.
An Officer, not a celebrity
What brought it about, primarily, was a change in doctrine. The framers of the Constitution saw presidents as constitutional officers who understood that while their authority came ultimately from the people, it came immediately from the Constitution. Such presidents would promote reason and deliberation in a governmental system in which the powers are separated. The framers took a dim view of popular speech; for them, rhetorical presidents, out on the hustings making appeals to the people, might subvert the constitutional order and the premium it places on deliberation.
Most nineteenth-century presidents accepted this understanding of the office and the relative circumspection it required. While Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to "go to the people" to rally support for a legislative proposal (the Hepburn Act, a railroad regulation bill central to his Square Deal) and while he did coin the familiar term, "the bully pulpit," he was not the principal theoretician of the rhetorical presidency. That title history bestows upon Woodrow Wilson, who taught political science at Princeton University before embarking upon the political career that took him to the White House in
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