A good political interviewer tries to knock her subject off his talking points.<\/b>
\nAsked in his Fox News interview whether he\u2019s ever enabled \u201ca train of men\u201d to \u201cgang rape\u201d women, Brett Kavanaugh calmly replied, \u201cI\u2019ve never done any such thing, known about any such thing.\u201d It was a strangely clinical answer to such a gruesome question, which Kavanaugh might have scripted himself 20 years ago when, as the associate counsel on the Starr commission, he argued that President Bill Clinton should be forced to respond in detail to Monica Lewinsky\u2019s allegations against him. I would like to have heard Kavanaugh explain how it feels to be on the receiving end of such personal sexual excavation. But the friendly Fox News didn\u2019t go there.
Martha MacCallum, who has made no secret of her distaste for the Democrats, gave the Supreme Court nominee a wide berth to drive home a litany of prepackaged lines, largely unchallenged. Here\u2019s how many times Kavanaugh got away with saying:
\u201cI just want a fair process,\u201d \u201cfair,\u201d or \u201cfairness\u201d\u201422
\u201cI\u2019ve never sexually assaulted anyone\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve never done any such thing\u201d\u201412
I\u2019ve always treated women with \u201cdignity and respect\u201d or \u201cequality\u201d\u20148
These are what communications strategists call \u201clanding pads\u201d or \u201ckey messages\u201d\u2014notions a politician is meant to drive home, usually in more varied language than we saw last night, to make his point. A good politician delivers his \u201ckey messages\u201d so personably you don\u2019t even notice you\u2019re being served canned goods. A good political interviewer, meanwhile, tries to nudge the subject onto something unrehearsed or, when that fails, tries to make it obvious that his replies were prepackaged.
MacCallum could have tried the following: \u201cYou\u2019ve said repeatedly you\u2019re determined to clear your name. Then why aren\u2019t you demanding an FBI investigation instead of a day of testimony? I didn\u2019t hear you answer that question. As a judge, surely you like to weigh all the facts. Why aren\u2019t you in favor of taking time to gather all the facts here?\u201d
The trick is to keep asking. Don\u2019t let up.
Kavanaugh blasts \u201cfalse allegations\u201d in Fox interview.
Kavanaugh came off as the A student who\u2019s memorized his flash cards before the exam. We learned that in high school Kavanaugh had beer but no sex. He never blacked out. He went to church every Sunday. And he knows he\u2019s not perfect. The most reveling admission\u2014that he was a virgin until long after college\u2014elicited no follow-up. He offered that information as proof that he couldn\u2019t have been involved during an alleged gang rape. A follow-up question might have been, \u201cDo you believe that silent bystanders of rape bear any responsibility for the assault?\u201d Asking this question doesn\u2019t assume Kavanaugh is guilty; it opens up an important conversation with a man who could rule on these questions from the Supreme Court.
To be fair, the most revealing political interviews don\u2019t typically happen in the midst of a scandal, in a setting orchestrated by crisis managers (or by ex\u2013TV executives who work in the White House). Think of the first sit-down the then\u2013presidential candidate John Edwards gave about allegations he\u2019d had an affair, and a child, with Rielle Hunter. He lied through his teeth.
But it\u2019s up to the interviewer to at least try to knock the subject off his script. That\u2019s all about repetition and follow-up. When then-Representative Anthony Weiner was accused of sending pictures of his penis to strangers on Twitter, my former colleague at CNN Dana Bash made the most of her time with him. She repeatedly asked awkward, very awkward, questions and didn\u2019t let up. Although Weiner didn\u2019t confess on air\u2014a TV reporter\u2019s fantasy\u2014he was certainly rattled, and left a record of denials that came back to haunt him.
Because Kavanaugh didn\u2019t want to risk that outcome, he sought the most sympathetic outlet, Fox News, and got gentle treatment.
The White House is scrambling to calm its supporters over the new Kavanaugh allegations.
If, as reported, Kavanaugh had prepped for days, surely he was prepared to answer more pointed questions. Such as:
There was another missed opportunity, one that goes to a larger question at the heart of this controversy. Kavanaugh has described himself as a victim of character assassination and a smear campaign. He\u2019s said these allegations are \u201ca threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country.\u201d As a judge, a veteran of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and now a man who stands accused of terrible acts, how does he think allegations of sexual assault should be handled when leveled against our nation\u2019s leaders? What has he learned in the 20 years since he wrote those probing questions for Clinton?
The decision not to call in the FBI is looking worse and worse.
Again, Fox News didn\u2019t go there. And MacCallum didn\u2019t point out that 20 years ago, Kavanaugh wrote despairingly that the investigative process was leaving Lewinsky\u2019s life in \u201cshambles.\u201d He worried that her well-being was getting \u201clost in the shuffle.\u201d How does he think we\u2014the media, politicians, law enforcement\u2014can ensure that Ford doesn\u2019t suffer the same fate?
Full disclosure, I knew Brett Kavanaugh when I was a reporter covering the Bush White House for ABC News. I still know several of his close friends who find these allegations impossible to believe. The same friends have described him for years as destined for the Supreme Court. I hope he answers more probing questions in more detail on Thursday. Destiny is about the future. First, he has to deal with his past.<\/p>\n

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