Wes Vernon
Wednesday, March 28, 2001

"Face Off," syndicated to 146 stations around the country, has now paired Sen. Ted Kennedy against McCain. The daily program, just a few minutes in length, features one of the senators discussing an issue in the news, followed immediately by the other senator responding with his view.

It is generally assumed that "both sides" of a given issue would be aired in such a scenario. On the first day that McCain joined the program, succeeding Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., that was not the case.

Kennedy opened the discussion by telling McCain that he strongly favored the Arizonan's "signature issue" of campaign finance "reform," but that McCain's fellow Republicans were playing the role of the obstructionist in trying to block it.

McCain responded by saying, in effect, that Democrats criticizing Republicans on this issue were living in glass houses. Whereupon he proceeded to list the Clinton violations of campaign finance laws as a rationale for his legislation. He did not mention that Clinton was violating laws already on the books and that some have suggested the way to deal with Clinton's crimes is to enforce the present statutes rather than pass new laws for him to break.

The bottom line is that the radio listener was treated to a debate over which party was the best friend of McCain's arguably unconstitutional bill, opposed by most Republicans for that reason. There was no discussion on whether the bill should be opposed because it seeks to shut people up and deprive them of their free speech rights under the First Amendment.

"When you feature a discussion between the Democrats’ favorite Democrat and the Democrats’ favorite Republican, obviously you’re not going to get much of a debate,” Rich Noyes, an analyst with Media Research Center, told NewsMax.com.

A conservative Republican senator was startled to learn that McCain was carrying the Republican banner on the broadcast.

"He [McCain] is no Republican,” this senator said. He did not know whether the "Face Off” producers had sought input from the GOP Senate caucus as to who best represents them, but said he would look into it.

As it turns out, the producers of program say they seek advice from no one.

"Our only concern is what makes for good radio,” Paul Woodhull, president of Media Communications Services, told NewsMax.com. He said that in its 15 years on the air, "Face Off” has never aimed to be either "pro-left” or "pro-right.”

Reed Irvine, president of Accuracy in Media (AIM), while agreeing that McCain did not represent the Republican position, speculated to us that perhaps the producers could not find another Senate Republican to carry the GOP banner.

"We’re not trying to represent anybody,” Woodhull emphasized, adding that when Thompson bailed out of the program, "McCain was our first choice.”

"We maintain a firewall between ourselves” and the political establishment when it comes to picking hosts, he added.

"We don’t purport to represent each party,” he said prior to our raising the issue, leaving the impression that he had fielded questions of this type before and was prepared for them.

Noyes, of the Media Research Center, speculated that ignoring a "real Republican” might actually please some radio station program directors, and that McCain’s status as a darling of the liberal media might actually enhance the program’s chances of adding stations to its syndication.

Woodhull more or less confirmed the latter point, saying he was optimistic about securing wider circulation for the program due in part to McCain’s "maverick” status.

"But the senators represent no one’s views but their own,” he emphasized.

AIM’s Irvine recalled that the broadcast had started with Bob Dole as the Republican voice. Though Dole’s positions on the issues were generally adequate, Irvine was not convinced he made as strong a case as he could have.

Noyes noted that after Dole’s successor, Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., left the broadcast, he was succeeded by Thompson, who was okay, even with some non-GOP views. Thompson was then succeeded by McCain, who is giving President Bush a hard time, not only on campaign finance but also on tax cuts and enriching trial lawyers by making it easier to sue health maintenance organizations.

From Simpson to Thompson to McCain represents a downhill trend, Noyes agrees.

"Next stop: William Weld,” he dryly observed, referring to the liberal Republican who governed Massachusetts.

One conservative activist commented that any programmer searching for a personality combination that would make "good radio” could hardly go wrong with, say, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio.

Now there is a pair of mavericks that potentially could keep a program such as "Face Off” in the national headlines two or three times a week. Couldn’t that add stations at a rate that would be a program producer’s dream?

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Sen. John McCain
Media Bias

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