TV Banquet of Campaign Coverage

The road to the White House is strewn with sound bites, sight bites, insult bites, joke bites, poll bites and debate bites. Is biting any way to choose a President?

Thank goodness for the rare exceptions.

One is tonight’s valuable PBS documentary “The Choice” (at 9 on Channels 28 and 15). Another is tonight’s “Larry King Live” (at 6 on CNN), where Michael S. Dukakis and his wife, Kitty, chat informally in the relaxed setting of King’s informative program during an interview taped Saturday. And another is Tuesday’s 90-minute edition of ABC’s “Nightline” (11:30 on Channels 3, 7, 10 and 42), where Dukakis is scheduled to face Ted Koppel live.

“The Choice” offers a refreshing detour around the tediously clipped and shallow coverage that has typified much of the 1988 campaign.

But first “Nightline,” which sought dual appearances by Dukakis and George Bush, but was turned down by the vice president, who correctly felt he had more to lose than gain by a third extended TV appearance with Dukakis, given his lead in the polls and Koppel’s reputation for tough questioning.

Dukakis himself is gambling that the benefits of 90 minutes of free TV will outweigh the perils of being interrogated by someone who is, beyond question, TV’s best, shrewdest and most pugnacious hard-news interviewer. That Koppel is also very fair will be no consolation to Dukakis should the Democratic candidate stumble.

A promise: There will be follow-up questions this time.

In a more perfect world, in fact, the customary nonsense of televised candidate debates (or “joint appearances,” as Dan Rather more accurately terms them) would be discarded in favor of the candidates being interviewed two or three times each campaign by Koppel in a quasi-”Nightline” setting.

Just as Bert Parks once always crowned Miss America, Koppel would also become an American institution of a different sort, every four years joining the election machinery as our nonpartisan Designated TV Interviewer of Candidates. There would be no limits on the interviewer or interviewees and, one would expect, less dissembling and more truth.

Koppel has been looking for new challenges. What’s more, he already makes so much money that he surely could afford taking brief unpaid leaves of absence from ABC to prepare for and participate in these TV interviews (perhaps his own production company could produce them), which would appear on PBS and also be made available to any other TV entities showing an interest.

As for the White House aspirants, one rule need apply: no Koppel, no candidacy.

Naturally, a Constitutional amendment would be required to pull this off, but it would be worth the effort to better inform an electorate that may get most of its information about presidential candidates from TV.

Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world.

If it were, Tuesday’s “Nightline” interview with Dukakis would appear in prime time and not be relegated by ABC to the program’s usual 11:30 p.m. time slot.

The time-slot decision was reportedly unrelated to behind-the-scenes maneuvering by “Nightline” and the King show over which would get Dukakis first.

After ABC reportedly was miffed that Dukakis decided to go on “Larry King Live” before “Nightline,” Dukakis aides asked the King show to delay running its interview until Tuesday, according to CNN sources. The request was turned down.

Even preceded by King, however, the Koppel interview promises to give the campaign coverage new dimension, but unfortunately in front of a limited audience. According to ABC, a third of its affiliates don’t even air “Nightline” at its network time. These public-spirited stations--the larger ones are in Atlanta, Dallas, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Kansas City--instead delay Koppel, sometimes until midnight or later, in order to run more lucrative syndicated programs in his place.

So, only the most determined night owls will be watching.

Had Bush accepted the “Nightline” invitation, ABC was prepared to start Tuesday’s program in prime time, then break for its affiliates’ local newscasts, and return afterward with more of the candidates.

ABC apparently didn’t want to disturb its prime-time lineup for Dukakis alone, which is the kind of narrow decision an accountant would make and one that seems to clarify ABC’s priorities.

Maybe if “Nightline” had paired Dukakis with Robin Givens. . . .

Meanwhile, “The Choice” is in prime time, fortunately, a co-production of Time magazine and PBS’ “Frontline” that traces the clashing backgrounds of Dukakis and Bush, identifies their strengths and weaknesses at key points in their careers and raises questions about the fitness of each to lead the nation.

What emerges from film clips and interviews that make up these overlapping profiles is a young Bush who was obedient, (“He did what he was told,” his prep school teacher recalls) and a young Dukakis voted “most brilliant” by his classmates. Both excelled at college, where Bush was a fun-loving joiner, Dukakis a no-nonsense non-joiner.

Most of the familiar footnotes surface, but are presented with greater focus and clarity. Bush not only opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act while running for Congress in Texas, but is recalled saying: “I took some of the far right positions I thought I needed to get elected, and I hope I will never do it again.”

Dukakis himself hardly deserves the “liberal” label applied to him by Bush in 1988, according to some of Dukakis’ critics. He’s recalled as a “practical reformer” who, to avoid raising taxes in his first term as Massachusetts governor, “stripped programs for the most vulnerable people in society.”

Adds human services lobbiest Judy Meredith, somewhat critically: “He is not by any strength of the imagination a bleeding heart liberal. . . . He’s a good, hard-working, dependable, dull moderate. He has a wonderful wife. It’s kind of like you wonder what she sees in him. . . .”

Both men exhibit competence. But we hear that Dukakis is so bright and single-minded that he sometimes ignores the opinions of others. And we hear that Bush is so preoccupied with the opinions of others that he carries loyalty to a fault.

Bush is the eternal good soldier, described in cabinet meetings as being passive around President Reagan and “cautious in opening up . . . and participating in what might be a controversy.”

David Keene, national political director for Bush’s failed 1980 presidential campaign, wonders how Bush “would act in a leadership role, not because there’s any evidence that he wouldn’t act well, but because he has not been placed in that role.”

Former Massachusetts legislator Martin Linsky, an independent, wonders if Dukakis has the vision to lead the nation. “What I worry about is getting him to see things that are not yet clear, something over the horizon.”

Credit “The Choice” producer Sherry Jones, interviewer/narrator GarryWills and their associates with superlative work in questioning what lies beyond America’s horizon after Nov. 8.

Of Bush and Dukakis, Wills concludes: “One has been too yielding, the other is rigid.” Well, there’s always 1992.