A Question of Right and Wrong

THE HUNDREDS of articles on the passing of anti-Biden tapes to The New York Times, The DesMoines Register, and the NBC Nightly News by John Sasso, present one of two views of the former Dukakis campaign manager's actions. Either Sasso was right to have made an issue out of Biden's appropriation of a Neil Kinnock speech or he was wrong.

Both views depend on the same faulty premise: that Sasso made an issue out of Biden's actions. In reality, Sasso's revealing the Delaware Senator as a political Rich Little was intended to make a scandal.

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times, in extended news analyses, have come down squarely on Sasso's side. There are essentially two reasons offered for supporting Sasso: the first is that in political campaigns, like love and war, all is fair. The second is that Sasso was pointing out what Biden was indeed doing. Sasso was slinging truth, not mud.

But then why did Sasso treat the truth like dirt, passing it along surreptitiously to the press, denying any involvement with such filth, allowing his candidate to urge the embattled Biden to hang on in the face of the questioning of his character?

If Biden was in fact so guilty, so clearly passing himself off as something other than what he was, why didn't Sasso suggest that his candidate, Governor Michael S. Dukakis, raise the issue publicly to be debated and discussed by the candidates?

Sasso could have written a speech for Dukakis which praised the themes of the Biden campaign--and then went on to question the candidate's commitment to them since in fact they were not his own. Dukakis could have noted that, as a son of Massachussetts, it disturbed him to see a rival appropriating the eloquence of Bobby and Jack as if it were his own. In short, Dukakis might have required Biden to explain the themes of his campaign and defend both their originality and their relevance to the United States of 1988.

INSTEAD, an opportunity to enjoin debate on a high level was passed up in favor of the low road. Instead of one candidate questioning another, the dope on Biden was passed under the table to the press, to be revealed in a front-page New York Times story that seemed to come from nowhere. If this is the case Sasso used the press to stifle debate.

Debate, as John Sasso well knows, requires discussion between candidates. The public then decides who has been more convincing. The candidate who is challenged has the opportunity to respond at a level of seriousness to the issues put forth by his rival. If Dukakis charges Biden with being disingenuos, Biden can counter by explaining why Kinnock and the Kennedys hold such a sway over him. But the press justifies revelations, such as those pertaining to Biden, by invoking the right of scrutiny which is by design not a dialogue, but rather an examination.

He who responds is judged, again, by a supposedly objective press. And since the press clings to its pose, the subject is forced simply to challenge the facts. He cannot, as in a debate, question the terms of discussion.

So Biden and his aides make statements of fact in refutation, such as the claim that attribution to Kinnock was originally intended. The press then applies scrutiny to these claims of fact. Each fact which the press refutes thus damages the candidate's credibility.

BUT THE original substantive issue--what Joe Biden stands for--which is what compelled Sasso to tip the media, is kept locked away, no one being brave enough to raise it--least of all John Sasso. Sasso was cognizant of the dynamics of revelation and press scrutiny. He knew that a secretly revealed tip would knock Biden out of the race, while a substantive speech about Biden by Dukakis would only serve to put more issues on the table. As any campaign manager knows, and as many were quick to point out, if the choice is between adding issues to the agenda, or reducing the number of competitors, you don't have much pondering to do.

So in the end the question is not whether JohnSasso was wrong, but rather whether he was right, in the broadest sense of that word. The position Dukakis took--and took too long in taking--was that Sasso did what anybody would have done, and that anybody just isn't good enough.