The Alan Keyes Experiment

So from the start I’m worried about “Alan Keyes Is Making Sense.” If they can’t get the title right, how are they going to come up with a sensible format for 60 minutes of airtime?

The premier opens with Keyes explaining the format. First he’ll give the night’s topic and bring on an expert to get the audience up to speed. Then he’ll bring on a panel of “People Just Like You” to discuss the issue. Then there’ll be a second expert to debate with. Then he’ll take e-mails and phone calls from the audience. He’ll also comment on comments made in the chat room devoted to the program, which, I think, becomes the first instance of meta-meta-meta-journalism. Finally, he’ll close each show with a monologue.

Tonight’s topic is military tribunals. Keyes says it’s a fitting subject for Martin Luther King Day. He has on a retired military judge, who is appropriately insightful. He finishes his spiel like a pro, and Keyes is about to throw to commercial, when he pauses and asks the camera, “Tell me if you think this makes sense.” A graphic on the screen informs us that we’re now in a seglet called “Does That Make Sense?” Keyes launches into a 50-word argument against the people who are using Enron to bolster the case for campaign finance reform, and finishes by asking, “So politicians didn’t get benefits, no favors were done. And yet this proves that money is a poisonous influence in our politics. Hmm. Does this make sense?”

And now he’s grinning. Really grinning, for what seems like minutes, until they finally cut to commercial. He shouldn’t grin. When he does he looks like the type of guy who thinks crowd-surfing might make him hip.

When they come back, Keyes is kicking off “People Just Like You,” saying that they are going to “get on with the business of making sense.” His suit jacket is gone and he’s wearing a cardigan. I bet this is in his contract.

I can tell his three people are Just Like Me because they’re not wearing make-up. And like me, they can’t really keep up with Keyes, who was superbly schooled in political philosophy before entering government as a deputy of Jeane Kirkpatrick’s at the United Nations in the first Reagan administration and becoming a conservative celebrity. He starts off reading from Federalist 78 and moves briskly on to Montesquieu. His panelists are lost before his first question.

The ensuing 20 minutes are a train wreck. Keyes rattles on at his staccato clip, the Ordinary People talk past one another. It doesn’t make sense. Most cable news blather hits the brain and ricochets away with a gentle ping; this washes over you in numbing waves.

At the end of the segment he takes 30 seconds to explain to us why his Ordinary People are dunderheads. Then he does another “Does That Make Sense?” seglet, this one on gun control. He grins again.

During the commercial breaks, they’ve been running little house ads for the show, and frankly, they’re disturbing. In one, a voice-over says, “Mom, apple pie, and Alan Keyes–it doesn’t get more American than this!” Another says, “Alan Keyes is making sense on MSNBC–and so are you!” On a third, Keyes voices the ad and says, “I’m Alan Keyes, and I’m making sense!” They do a short montage of Keyes smiling and preening for the camera, and close out with him giving a forced laugh, “Ha, ha, ha!” It’s a little too Lex Luthor for my taste.

For his next segment, “The Bottom Line,” he brings on an honest-to-goodness expert on constitutional law. Keyes has ditched the sweater and has his jacket back on. They argue, and for the first time “AKIMS” feels like an ordinary cable news show, like Laura Ingraham’s “Watch It!” After a few minutes Keyes segues to “On Your Mind,” where he takes calls and e-mails and looks in at his chat room pleasantly, like a kid playing with his ant farm. Most of the callers just want to genuflect. With a few minutes left, he moves on to the last segment, “On My Mind.” He wraps up the show with some thoughts on the controversy surrounding the multicultural fireman statue in New York. It doesn’t have much to do with military tribunals, but it is sort of Martin Luther King-ish.

Tuesday, January 22, 2002, Episode II: Confronting Evil

Alan Keyes isn’t afraid to go after big fish. Today’s topic is “Confronting Evil” and to help us sort it out in the “Just the Facts” segment is a woman from the Chamber of Commerce. They talk a lot about the jobs and office space lost on September 11.

“People Just Like You” opens and Keyes is wearing the sweater again. The segment rolls along until he turns it into a classroom: “Does anybody here know what the root of ‘innocence’ is, where it comes from? It’s a fascinating word, and it’s a little bit–well, it’s expected and yet unexpected. As I recall, the root of that word is ‘nocere,’ which is a Latin word meaning, like, ‘noxious.’ We get the word ‘noxious’ from, and it means ‘to harm something.’ So what is an innocent person? An innocent person is a harmless person . . .” He leaves his curveball hanging like a grapefruit–we’re off to the races on abortion.

The “People Just Like You” tonight are an artsy theater director, a preacher from Philadelphia, and a Georgetown student. The director says that he’s single and uncomfortably side-steps the abortion issue. The reverend, who has a fantastic speaking voice and looks like Denzel Washington, gives a reasoned, compassionate critique of abortion (Note to MSNBC: Give this guy a show!). The Georgetown student mumbles something about needing to protect Choice at all costs and wells up like she’s going to cry. Keyes is clearly the meanest professor she’s ever had.

The abortion debate carries into the next segment, where James Dobson is the esteemed guest. For a brief moment, MSNBC morphs into America’s Voice. They pat each other on the back for being pro-life for a few minutes until Keyes says goodbye and does his first “Does That Make Sense?” of the night. It’s about fat people suing junk food companies.

The viewer feedback segment is uneventful. A lot of people really, really like Keyes. What MSNBC doesn’t seem to understand is that a lot of people on e-mail only equals a few tenths of a ratings point. We’ll see, the preliminary Nielsen numbers should be in tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 23, 2002, Episode III: Capital Crimes

The results are in, and they ain’t pretty. For his debut, “AKIMS” scored a 0.5 in the Nielsens. He finished far behind Fox and CNN and was down 17 percent from Chris Matthews, NBC’s other big cable draw.

But tonight it feels as though he’s turning a corner. The further Keyes goes off the news, the better he is. His guest for “Just the Facts” is a legal historian from George Washington University, and they talk about the history and morality of the death penalty at the highest level I’ve ever seen on TV. They talk Kant and retributive vs. utilitarian justice. It’s quite good.

Then comes a “Does That Make Sense?” non sequitur about Libya, followed by the “People Just Like You.” Tonight’s crew is a group of three college students, two kids from Georgetown and a kid from George Washington. They haven’t got a chance.

Keyes pushes them this way and that for a few minutes. And then he starts asking questions. “What enforces the law for most people?” he asks three times, pointing his finger at each student in succession. They stumble over their responses, none of which satisfies Proctor Keyes, who gets more and more frustrated as they fail to come up with correct, or even coherent, answers. Every time the kid from GW gets put on the spot, he looks like he wants to say, “Ummm. . . . Pass?”

As “Socratic Dialogues with Alan Keyes” continues, I’m drawn to his sweater. It’s the same one from the first two shows. At first glance it looks like forest green with a pine tree pattern on it. But as you stare deeper, it becomes a cardigan of many colors . . .

I’m snapped back to reality by the sight of Keyes going after one of the Georgetown students. She’s against the death penalty on religious grounds and he’s just stomping on her. The legal system has special rules in place to keep minors shielded during trials. There ought to be a law that keeps college students off TV for their own protection.

They go to commercial and there’s a new house ad. “Alan Keyes! He’s exercising his right–to be right!”

When his expert, a social justice advocate from the Quijote Center, comes on in the next segment, they have an excellent exchange–high-toned, just like with his first guest. The “On Your Mind” segment is next and it feels like filler. Frankly, I’m shocked his fans have gone three days without anyone addressing him as “Ambassador Keyes.”

But the producers seem to have Fox on the brain. A number of e-mails they show on screen knock the Fox News Channel. One correspondent says that he hadn’t turned off the Fox News Channel for three years, until Keyes came on MSNBC. Another says that Roger Ailes must be kicking himself for hiring Greta and not Keyes. For his parting thoughts, Keyes shows a tape of Bill O’Reilly talking about “AKIMS.”

Thursday, January 24, 2002, Episode IV: Potter & Tolkien

Before tonight’s show I went to the “AKIMS” website to see how they find their “People Just Like You.” There’s a form to submit with instructions that read: “If you are planning to be in the D.C. area and would like to be on the show, tell us a little about yourself (age, occupation, school, year, major), what you’d like to talk about, and when you’ll be in town.” Sort of like “The Price Is Right.”

When I tune in, it’s a couple minutes before 10:00, and Ashleigh Banfield is wrapping up. As she says, “And now, ‘Alan Keyes Is Making Sense,'” she gets a pained expression on her face and looks off to the side. Maybe her glasses are pinching her nose.

The Fox mania is on full display as Keyes opens the show by mentioning Bill O’Reilly, but the topic for the night is whether or not the movies “Harry Potter” and “Fellowship of the Ring” are good for the culture. Keyes admits to being a big fan of Tolkien and says that he’s seen the movie four times already. Full disclosure requires that I admit I’m going to see it for the fifth time tomorrow, but I am not bringing the gem dice with me this time.

Keyes’s “Just the Facts” guest is Connie Neal, who wrote “What’s a Christian To Do with Harry Potter?” They have an interesting talk about Plato and the influence of entertainment. They agree that some books and movies might be bad for kids, but that Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are fine.

The “People Just Like You” are the sharpest bunch yet and as a reward they’ve been allowed to go through make-up. It takes less than four minutes for one of them to bring up September 11, but in the end they all agree that Harry Potter and Tolkien are good. Guest expert Mona Charen concurs during her segment. She becomes the first person to bring up Keyes’s failed presidential bids and coyly intimates that she voted for him. Random flattery should never go unpunished–we’ll hold her to that in the future.

The call-in segment features another first when Tyler from Missouri calls in and tells Keyes that he, too, is a talk-radio host. It’s like harmonic convergence. Get Liddy on line three.

Then Keyes gives us his parting thoughts, and he ends by showing a clip of O’Reilly, who is mocking The Sweater. Keyes laughs and does some towel-snapping of his own. He thinks he’s joined the club. It’s a little awkward because it’s not clear that O’Reilly is laughing with Keyes.

And just like that, the first week of “AKIMS” is behind us. Savor it; there may not be many more.

Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard.