RECENT NEWS REPORTS suggest that George Stephanopolous is likely to become the new host of ABC’s “This Week.” Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts, the current co-hosts, are on their way out. And Stephanopolous recently spent $2 million on a new house in Georgetown. ABC hasn’t yet announced any deal, but Washington, a town in which references to “Sunday morning” rarely have anything to do with church, is buzzing nonetheless. Many Beltway conservatives are outraged. Stephanopolous, after all, was Bill Clinton’s dirty tricks guy in the 1992 presidential campaign. Last year, he labeled George W. Bush a “far-right” conservative, and called Bill Bradley and Al Gore “centrist” Democrats. Though ABC has dispatched him on several reporting trips, these conservatives argue that he still spins for Democrats on “This Week.” Giving Stephanopolous this much-coveted platform on Sunday morning is yet another example of liberal media bias. They’re right on all counts, of course. Still, who cares? Stephanopolous is smart. He asks more intelligent questions of “This Week” guests–Democrats and Republicans–than both Sam and Cokie. And while those two are working journalists, they’re not exactly conservatives. (I remember one debate several years ago at CPAC between Donaldson and Bob Novak on the flat tax. Donaldson, who was a good sport just to show up for the exchange in front of an exceedingly hostile crowd, repeatedly said he favored a flat tax–so long as the government taxes people at different rates.) The griping about Stephanopolous obscures the real problem: left-leaning reporters who inject their biases into stories for unsuspecting readers and viewers. The fact that anyone paying even casual attention to politics over the past decade will remember Stephanopolous as a Clintonite is an advantage. Everything he says will be viewed through that prism. Former colleagues have complained loudly throughout the course of Stephanopolous’s tenure on “This Week,” saying that in his attempts to appear fair, he has been overly critical of his former boss and Democrats in general. Although such protests have surely been overstated, there is some truth to them. (It’s like when my Dad used to referee my soccer games, and whistled me for fouls I couldn’t possibly have committed–being that in most cases I was ten feet away from the nearest opposing player.) The larger question for conservatives is this: Where is your faith in the market? If Stephanopolous is as bad as conservatives predict he will be, the show’s ratings will plummet and he’ll be canned as quickly as he was hired. So, welcome George. And good luck. Stephen F. Hayes is staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
