Washington Post Death Spiral Watch (Yet Another David Broder Edition)

Primatologist Frans de Waal on David Broder:

Frans de Waal: Nervous Old Male: David Broder in the Washington Post of September 28, 2008, writes an opinion piece entitled "McCain as the Alpha Male." Since the term "alpha male" comes out of primatology, and I have known many males who qualify, I feel like commenting on Broder's observation

... an imbalance in the deference quotient between the younger man and the veteran senator -- an impression reinforced by Obama's frequent glances in McCain's direction and McCain's studied indifference to his rival....

A confident alpha male chimpanzee would never show studied indifference. I have seen such behavior only in males who were terrified of their challenger.... A self-confident alpha male just approaches his challenger and sets him straight, either by attacking him or performing a spectacular display of his own. No avoidance of eye contact: he takes the bull by the horns. It rather is the hesitant or fearful alpha male who avoids looking straight at the other.... I read the body language between McCain and Obama as that between a senior male being challenged by a remarkably confident junior one. The senior didn't know exactly what to do. He avoided eye contact and body orientation, probably realizing that a direct confrontation might not go his way. If McCain was an alpha male, it was an incredibly insecure one...

David Broder:

McCain as the Alpha Male: There were no knockout blows in the first presidential debate of the fall, but John McCain outpointed Barack Obama often enough to encourage his followers that he can somehow overcome the odds and deny the Democrats the victory that has seemed to be in store for them. It was a small thing, but I counted six times that Obama said that McCain was "absolutely right" about a point he had made. No McCain sentences began with a similar acknowledgment of his opponent's wisdom, even though the two agreed on Iran, Russia and the U.S. financial crisis far more than they disagreed. That suggests an imbalance in the deference quotient between the younger man and the veteran senator -- an impression reinforced by Obama's frequent glances in McCain's direction and McCain's studied indifference to his rival.

Whether viewers caught the verbal and body-language signs that Obama seemed to accept McCain as the alpha male on the stage in Mississippi, I do not know. But it reinforced my impression that McCain was the more aggressive debater. He flung the adjectives that stick in a listener's mind, calling Obama "naive" and therefore "dangerous"...

Did Broder really remain in his cave, reading none of the polls reported on Saturday that showed that voters thought Obama had done a better job in the debate? Or is he just a big liar when he says "I do not know"?

I say liar.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Comments

[Doug T]

Brad, why can't we get rid of David Broder. That is the correct question. It is more precise than yours, which is also true. The political way to refute Broder on McCain as alpha is to note the difference between McCain and Reagan. RR was Alpha. Obama was Alpha at this debate. McCain was an asshole.

But they both begin with "a" so maybe Broder just had a senior moment.

[howard]

david broder doesn't care about polls; he knows what american should be thinking.

[Doctor Jay]

I think this is the same misunderstanding of dominance behavior that led to Al Gore's odd behavior in his first debate with W. But make no mistake, that dominance difference is going to be felt by those involved and by viewers.

[M. Green]

I think it's fairly clear that Obama made a deliberate decision to be the "nice guy" well before the debate started (referring to his opponent as John, making eye contact, not hitting back, etc.) Broder's experienced enough to realize that this was a deliberate strategy on Obama's part, so it's hard to take his rant at face value. And of course, we know that the polls broke heavily for Obama, indicating that his strategy was the right one.

[Charles]

The polls show a swing toward Obama such that he hits 50%.

That number is known to induce episodes of projectile expulsion of feces from candidates on the other side of those numbers.

[Lab Partner]

"Deference quotient"? Last time I heard the word "deference" Rick Davis was admonishing the press to treat Sarah Palin with kid gloves.

[Matt]

Broder's piece seemed like self-parody to me. Broder is both unable to read basic human interactions and remarkably incurious (or else he would have known of the widespread meme in the opposite direction).

[Aaron]

Funny. Right after that article came out electronicaly I sent Broder a rebuttal citing... Frans de Waal:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Aaron
Date: Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 2:56 PM
Subject: eye contact
To: davidbroder@washpost.com

Mr Broder:

I was interested in your interpretation of the candidates' non-verbal
cues. However, my understanding of research on primate social behavior
suggests that avoidance of eye contact by one party is generally a
sign of submission, not dominance. Competing chimpanzees do often
avoid eye contact, but this is reciprocal (a good anecdote in Frans de
Waal, Chimpanzee Politics, pp. 86-87).

McCain's avoidance of eye contact and Obama's frequent resort to it
don't support the "alpha male" trope used in your column. McCain had
clearly set out to be more overtly confrontational than Obama in this
debate. However, aggression and dominance are two very different
things. This important distinction has been blurred by the Bush-Cheney
administration in recent years, with severe policy repercussions. All
the more reason for journalists to emphasize it, not confuse things
further.

[kharris]

This is refreshing. I thought David Brooks had so dominated the trick of trotting out fake science to support egregious political hackery that nobody else would dare try it. I guess Broder's alpha status in sycophantic political babbling allows him to stare resolutely away from Brooks while doing a spot-on immitation.

[Anna Haynes]

> "Right after that article came out electronicaly I sent Broder a rebuttal citing... Frans de Waal..."

Aaron, did you get a response from Broder? if so, what did he say?

I'm wondering if D.B. gets his marching orders from the same source as Peggy Noonan.

[Lord]

Accepting your opponent's points deemphasizes them and adds to your credibility making one look more reasonable and thoughtful. It is a sign of strength not weakness. The ignorant may fall for blustering, but the informed see it as just that.