Bushwhacked!

By Richard Stengel

In the curious, often unruly marriage between politics and television, there are certain charged moments that flicker in the national memory. Richard Nixon tense and sweaty debating an unruffled John Kennedy. Ed Muskie's frozen tears in the snows of New Hampshire. Ted Kennedy groping for meaning and a verb in an interview with Roger Mudd. Ronald Reagan squaring his jaw and asserting, "I'm paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!" Who cares that the man's name was actually Breen? It was great television.

Such moments supposedly provide insight into a hidden reality. In a flash they divulge the inner self, the man behind the mask. They are video epiphanies, what media wizards call a "defining moment." The viewer does not so much receive information as he does an impression. From that impression an opinion may be formed, and based on that opinion, a vote may be cast.

One such moment occurred last week. Like most of the others, it came upon the viewer unawares. Unlike others, it was staged, self-generated, almost ceremonial: a media event. Dan Rather was interviewing George Bush on the CBS Evening News -- live. Unusual, but not unprecedented. But what could have been just another conversation between two familiar talking heads turned into a collision with a resonance far out of proportion to the intense nine minutes of airtime. Their contretemps was not just a conflict between men but between two institutions, two symbols: the Vice President and the anchorman, the loyal emissary of the Reagan establishment taking on the embodiment of the East Coast liberal press.

At first, what happened seemed blindingly clear. A powerful TV journalist hectored the Vice President, who had been lured into the interview expecting that it would focus on his presidential campaign. Eager to combat his wimpy image, Bush came to shove, denouncing Rather's tactics and counterattacking by recalling the evening last September when Rather stalked away from his anchor duties and left the network blank for more than six minutes. The tightly coiled anchorman, a combustible character in the coolest of mediums, seemed almost to spring out of his chair, unsettling his audience with high-voltage intensity. It was video High Noon: Bush had shot down the legendary media gunslinger from Black Rock. It was the new George Bush. Not Bush the perpetual stand-in, but Bush the stand-up guy. Bush Unbound. Bush Unwimped.

The timing was almost perfect. His dustup came only two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, where he is trailing Bob Dole in the polls. For a candidate seeking to generate support from conservatives, getting mugged by Dan Rather and then beating him off was the political equivalent of winning a Purple Heart. "I can't really explain it, but a chord was hit," Bush said during a swing through South Dakota two days later. "I suppose people saw a guy up there by himself, standing up for what he believes."

Yet as the heat began to fade, people wondered about the light. Yes, Dan Rather had been brusque, even downright rude, but just what had George Bush stood up for anyway? That he has the right not to be dogged by questions he claims already to have answered? That he should be judged by more than just his murky behavior during the Iran-contra fiasco? Yes, but what had he been doing all that time? In rebutting Rather, Bush was not delivering a message, but beating up the messenger.

Rather's aggressive interrogation of Bush was an ambush that backfired. But the Bush people had planned a sally of their own: the Vice President was eager to launch a crowd-pleasing counterattack on live television. Within days, however, there were signs that Bush's strategy might also boomerang. Once the applause ended, Bush's testy rebuttals to Rather raised nagging qualms about his dubious involvement in the most misguided and sordid policy of the Reagan Administration.

In a poll for TIME by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 42% of those who saw or read about the exchange said they believed that Bush came out ahead, while 27% said Rather did. (Republicans split 59% to 16% in Bush's favor, but Democrats split 40% to 31% in Rather's favor.) Yet when asked whether it was right for Rather to push Bush on his role in the Iran-contra affair, 59% replied that it was (including 46% of the Republicans and 72% of the Democrats). Moreover, 79% said they believed the Vice President knows more about the arms-for-hostages deal than he has told the public.

The nine minutes that shook the wimp image were not nearly as spontaneous as they seemed. For both sides the encounter had been meticulously planned. By the middle of December CBS News had already aired a series of political profiles. Richard Cohen, senior political producer of the Evening News, lobbied for a different approach to Bush, one that centered on the Iran-contra affair. Rather and other producers agreed. In early January Cohen sent a letter to the Bush campaign requesting a lengthy taped interview for a campaign profile. "Part of our early coverage of the 1988 presidential election has been a series of candidate profiles," he wrote. "We purposely saved your profile for last . . . Dan Rather is very interested in your profile and has decided to do it himself." Then, as well as later, CBS never came out and said they planned to focus exclusively on the Iran-contra affair.

But from the moment the Bush campaign received Cohen's letter, they suspected that this was more than a run-of-the mill interview. Multiple copies of the letter circulated to the campaign's wise men. Unlike those in other organizations, the Bush staff members are not gluttons for publicity; they can afford to be discriminating. If they sniff a hatchet job, they steer clear. On his copy of the letter, Bush wrote, "I feel comfortable with Rather. Make sure this guy gets reply soon." Campaign Manager Lee Atwater was dead set against the interview. He was wary of Rather, but he was in the minority.

Bush Spokesman Peter Teeley began negotiating with CBS over the ground rules. In further discussions Roger Ailes, Bush's noted media consultant, contended that the only way to assure that the Vice President got his message across was to do the interview live. Eventually the Bush campaign insisted the interview be live or not at all. Take it or leave it. Says Teeley: "There was every indication from the beginning that the interview would be highly confrontational."

CBS was uncomfortable. Live interviews, particularly on the Evening News, are unpredictable. A taped interview allows for editing and shaping; a live interview gives the subject a chance to manipulate the conversation. The subject can filibuster, deftly evading a probing question. CBS had already produced a hard-hitting five-minute introduction examining Bush's contradictory claims about his Iran-contra role. Executive Producer Tom Bettag saw three options: run the five-minute intro on its own, kill the story or accede to Bush's conditions. Finally CBS agreed to do the interview live, and warned Bush's staff that Rather's questions were going to be tough and pointed.

On the weekend before the broadcast, CBS began airing promotions for the Bush-Rather interview and calling political writers to flag for them the "first interview on Iran-contra that Bush has done with any network." The day of the interview Rather had three one-hour rehearsals with the six people involved in the broadcast. He was coached as if he were a candidate preparing for a debate or a pugilist preparing for a fight, rather than a journalist going into an interview. Howard Rosenberg, a producer from CBS's Washington bureau, played Bush. "We knew it was going to be a brawl," says Cohen. "We prepared with that expectation." In the last of the three rehearsals, Rather was warned that Bush might bring up what Rather calls "the Miami thing," the blackout last September when a bristling Rather stomped off the Evening News set to protest CBS's decision to allow the U.S. Open tennis match to cut into the broadcast.

Though CBS never directly informed the Bush camp that the interview would focus exclusively on Iran-contra, its intentions were hardly a secret. "We kept getting reports that it was going to be an ambush," said Bush's chief of staff, Craig Fuller. "CBS was leaking so badly that if they'd been Dutch they'd have been under water," said Teeley. On Monday Teeley telephoned Bush to inform him of the rumors about a potential on-air confrontation, suggesting that Bush have a briefing for preparation. "I don't need a briefing, " Bush replied. He had just returned from a day of campaigning in New Hampshire. "I want to relax," he said.

The cameras were set up in Bush's vice presidential office on Capitol Hill. In New York, CBS staff members watched Bush walk into his office accompanied by Ailes and Fuller. CBS had set up a monitor in Bush's office so that he could watch the five-minute introductory report. "You may want to see this," said one technician. As he watched the first teaser for the interview -- "Still to come, a live interview with Mr. Bush on arms to Iran and money to the contras" -- Bush got steamed. "If that's all it's about," he announced to the technicians in his office, "they're going to find themselves with a seven-minute walkout on their hands."

When Rather began the interview with an Iran-contra question, Bush came came out firing. He quickly accused CBS of bad faith: "I find this to be a rehash and a little bit, if you'll excuse me, a misrepresentation on the part of CBS, who said you're doing political profiles on all the candidates."

CBS staffers claim to have been flabbergasted by the Vice President's gambit, suggesting that he was being disingenuous. But Bush was genuinely angry. He was also primed. When Rather noted that many Republicans believed Bush was hiding something, Bush played it deftly. "I am hiding something," said the Vice President. Rather: "Here's a chance to get it out." Bush: "You know what I'm hiding? What I told the President, that's the only thing."

At the best of times, neither Rather nor Bush are relaxed, easygoing TV performers. This time, both became agitated, developing an uncanny facility for speaking at precisely the same time. From the start, Rather was peremptory, as though time were running out even before the clock began ticking; he seemed on the edge of an explosion. Bush never relinquished his tone of tinny, aggrieved militancy; Rather never departed from his badgering, bulldoggish questioning. Before too long, he had crossed the line between objectivity and emotional involvement. Rather: "I don't want to be argumentative, Mr. Vice President." Bush: "You do, Dan." Bush, edgy and frustrated, deployed his tactical nuclear weapon. "It's not fair to judge my whole career by a rehash of Iran," he said. "How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York? Would you like that?" (Who cares that it was only six minutes, and Rather was broadcasting from Miami? It was a great television moment.)

The format was flexible. Rather had anywhere from three to about nine minutes to grill Bush. Through his earpiece, Bettag had been counting down the time to Rather. After eight minutes, he announced one minute to go. Bettag had already killed several stories. With 30 seconds left, he began telling Rather to cut. Ten. Nine. Eight. Rather: "There are clearly some unanswered questions. Are you willing to go to a news conference before the Iowa caucuses, answer questions from all . . ." Seven. Six. Five. Bush: "I've been to 86 news conferences since March . . ." Four. Three. Rather: "I gather the answer is no. Thank you very much for being with us, Mr. Vice President." Two. "We'll be back with more news in a moment." One. Cut. All that was missing was the squawk of the game-show buzzer signaling that the contestant had lost the last round.

Bush indulged in some all too familiar locker-room swagger. He told campaign aides and CBS staff members in his office after the show, "The bastard didn't lay a glove on me . . . Tell your goddamned network that if they want to talk to me to raise their hands at a press conference. No more Mr. Inside stuff after that." Then, as he put it afterward, he went over to his wife and said, "I just had the darndest interview." Later he apologized for taking the "Lord's name in vain."

The postshow atmosphere at CBS was grim. Some 6,000 people called CBS's New York headquarters that evening, most crying foul. Howard Stringer, the president of CBS News, came somewhat belatedly to Rather's defense. "The public doesn't often see aggressive journalism on television," he explained. "This is not the time to be careful how we address the people who want to be President of the United States." Stringer says the episode reinforced the need for live television on the evening news. "If we want to sanitize the evening news all the time, where all the edge is taken off for fear of what the audience thinks, we run the risk of going back to the least objectionable programs."

The next night, Rather departed from the customary Evening News format to offer a personal word. Along with a kind of primer on journalism -- "Trying to ask honest questions and trying to be persistent about answers is part of a reporter's job" -- he served up a tepid mea culpa on having cut Bush off at the end: "Ending live television interviews under time pressures sometimes isn't done as gracefully as we hope or intend, and last night was one of those times."

The incident seemed to revivify Bush and galvanize his campaign. "We're getting phone calls now from fence sitters we've been after for weeks," said Bill Cahill, a Bush staffer in New Hampshire. At a campaign stop in South Dakota, Bush found dozens of his listeners wearing lapel buttons with a diagonal slash across "Dan Rather." At Bush's national headquarters, an aide scurried through the lobby with a long memo draft titled "Reaping the Benefits of the Rather Interview."

Yet as Bush basked in the afterglow of victory, he once again diluted his p.r. triumph with remarks that would be more appropriate for an overeager Boy Scout who had just won a survival-hike merit badge. At a chili lunch in Worland, Wyo., he told an appreciative audience, "I need combat pay for last night, I'll tell you." To a high school chemistry class in Cheyenne, he described live television: "You know, it's Tension City when you're in there."

By Friday, however, Bush seemed eager to avoid the impression he was dwelling on the matter. "I don't want to go into it," he told TIME Correspondent David Beckwith as they flew across Iowa. "I don't want to dwell on it. I don't want to discuss it. I've said it was an event, a powerful event, and you've seen the reactions from around the country. But there's no benefit for me to dwell on it. I was amazed at the response everywhere we went this week -- Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa -- but there's no point in my trying to capitalize on it." Did Bush feel his judgment or integrity has been called into question by his Iran-contra role? "I think most people think it's been exhaustively looked into, that I haven't done anything wrong, though they might question my judgment. But the record speaks clearly on all that. So let the people decide it."

Bob Dole, who had the most to lose by the Bush-Rather dustup, took the long view. Advisers counseled him to maintain a judicious silence, but he could not resist a barbed comment about Bush's born-again aggressiveness. "If you can't stand up to Dan Rather," he said sharply, "you've got to deal with Gorbachev and a few other people." Dole also noted that the affair was another indication that the Iran-contra issue will not go away.

Bush's ripostes to Rather were the capstone to a month-old "get tough" campaign orchestrated by Media Adviser Ailes and other staffers. "If somebody hits him," says Lee Atwater, "Bush is going to try to hit back harder." In recent weeks, Bush has jabbed at Alexander Haig, tweaked Bob Dole, and lit into James P. Gannon, editor of the Des Moines Register, for what he claims was unfair reporting about his role in the Iran-contra affair. Two weeks ago, at an "Ask George Bush" gathering in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bush waded into the audience, seized a piece of Jack Kemp campaign literature from a 15-year-old girl and dramatically ripped it to pieces.

Bush insists that his macho attitude will not translate into a campaign of , press bashing. "I feel much more relaxed with the press now than I ever have," he says. But in attacking the press, he is joining the club; the time- honored sport of press bashing is a growth industry in 1988. Gary Hart, upon re-entering the race, abjured the media as part of his campaign to "let the people decide," and he has not let up since then. Gephardt's new populist lumps "editorial boards and writers" in the "Establishment" that he has suddenly decided to decry.

While the episode may have squelched doubts about Bush's fortitude, it seems to have revived doubts about his role in the Iran-contra affair. A reading of the confrontation's transcript suggests that Bush was evasive, while Rather seemed knowledgeable and persistent. In television, style overwhelms substance, image replaces information. But as the sense of a showdown between Bush and the evil anchorman began to subside, perceptions began to change.

Paradoxically, televison's "defining" moment is not usually defined at the time. The moment gains resonance through hindsight. The original memory is adjusted and tinkered with by what comes afterward. Reviewing the Kennedy- Nixon debates reveals that Kennedy was almost as nervous and stilted as Nixon. In the end, the benefit Bush can draw from his tangle with Rather will depend on whether viewers recall it as a moment of justified indignation or as a peevish attempt to avoid coming to terms with the Iran-contra affair. It could go either way, for in fact it was both.

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With reporting by David Beckwith/Washington and Mary Cronin/New York