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The NewsHour's regular panel of historians -- presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Micheal Beschloss, journalist/author Haynes Johnson and Bill Kristol, editor editor and publisher of The Weekly Standard -- put the first presidential debate of 1996 in perspective.

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Joining us now are four NewsHour regulars, presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss. Journalist and author Haynes Johnson, and William Kristol, editor and publisher of The Weekly Standard. Thank you all for joining us. Starting with you, William Kristol, how will this debate go down in history?

WILLIAM KRISTOL, The Weekly Standard: I don’t think October 6, 1996, will be a date that will go down in history particularly. Our kids won’t be asking us what we were doing the night that Bob Dole and Bill Clinton debated. I thought they each did fine. It wasn’t a debate that made one embarrassed to be an American or embarrassed to be a Republican and a Dole supporter, or a Democrat and a Clinton supporter, but nothing really memorable I don’t think.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Haynes Johnson.

HAYNES JOHNSON, Journalist/Author: I agree with that. This was a debate it really wasn’t a debate, but you did get a sense of who they were. And I think what you saw was the authentic Bob Dole, for instance, the Dole that people who have watched him in the Congress over the years, he skirts to the edge. There’s a lacerating quality about him. The remarks about the President on drugs and a few little--he didn’t speak--Mr. President, I’m going to say that to you even though you didn’t afford that courtesy, he said twice, to President Bush--but this was Dole, a warmer person. But it is not going to be one of those moments we’re going to play back in one single thing like Nixon-Kennedy or any of the others. It was a useful evening in terms of defining differences between them and seeing who they were though.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Doris.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: Well, it’s interesting. I think it was a classy debate, and for that very reason, it may not live--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Why classy?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: --in--I think both men did well. I think they both showed a certain honorability. There were no gaffs as there--that’s what we remember; we remember gaffs like Eastern Europe, when Ford said it wasn’t under Soviet domination, or when Carter suddenly mentioned little Amy and nuclear weapons. Nobody did that tonight. There was no real mean-spirited assault in the same way that Dole did in ‘76, when he blamed the Democrats for the war. There were some mean asides, like Haynes says. And the interesting thing is, though, what would make the whole debate memorable is the only thing that we don’t know for sure tonight. It would depend how the American people responded, and it’s going to take a couple of days for that. After the ‘76 debate, Ford thought he did really well until the Eastern European thing popped back into his mind.

Kennedy knew immediately in 1960 that he had won that debate hands down, and the difference was it was the first debate, so nobody had ever been exposed that way on television. They don’t have that chance now, and it’s not as close an election, so it’s hard to imagine this debate will make such a difference. But the very good reasons why it was classy may be why it may not be memorable, and that’s okay.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you agree with all that, Michael?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Most of it. I think it was pretty grim. You know, near the end of this debate, President Clinton said to the audience all around America, you can probably tell that we like each other. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to tell that just from seeing this debate. And I think this is one of the grimmer debates in American history in the history of presidential politics in terms of the relationship between the two principals that came across on the screen.

Another thing I thought was fascinating, if you go back to 1960, Kennedy vs. Nixon, they basically responded to questions in terms of telling about their positions on issues. This whole thing has become so much of an art at this point that you’ve got to listen to the interior monologue. 1980, Jimmy Carter kept on trying to convey that Ronald Reagan was risky; Mondale in ‘84 that Reagan did not know the kind of things a President must know. And obviously Bob Dole came equipped this evening to again and again turn every answer or nearly every answer into an opportunity to convey the idea that Bill Clinton is a liberal, that perhaps he can’t be trusted, and is hamstrung by special interests, very much on the offensive, whereas, Bill Clinton came very much defensive, someone who is sitting on his lead with much of the rhetoric we heard in the Chicago convention, bridge to the 21st century, and so on, two candidates with very different purposes.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: But don’t you think, Michael, that it seemed like Clinton was much more able to be good about being on the defensive? Unlike Bush in the last debate, where he was really on the defensive and you could feel it, Clinton had a record to go on, so he didn’t--he could take responsibility for Somalia. He could take responsibility for the rise in drug use, and he didn’t have to feel like he was really under assault. So there was a certain generosity about his being able to defend his record that you can’t have when you, yourself, and your record is under assault, as Bush was.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, Charlayne, I think the key point is that Clinton was not under assault--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: That’s right.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: --on the one issue that we wondered whether Dole would assault him on, which is the character issue. That was the dog that did not bark in this debate; Dole barely raised it in the first seventy-five minutes, except really indirectly. Finally, Jim asked Sen. Dole, what about personality, is that a fair--personal differences--is that a fair issue and Sen. Dole made a joke about blood pressure and cholesterol--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Right.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: --and then remembered to raise the pardon issue, which I think he did in a rather indirect way. Clinton disposed of it quickly. Dole did not come back to it. It may be admirable of Sen. Dole not to have gone after Clinton on character but the big question was, was he going to raise that issue explicitly, was he going to really try to say that Bill Clinton isn’t fit to be president somehow? He didn’t say that, and at a time when the economy is good, the country is at peace, if you’re not going to scare people by Clinton’s second term, which he didn’t do, and if you’re not going to challenge his character and fitness, it’s hard to know how--see how you beat an incumbent.

HAYNES JOHNSON: One other thing I thought was fascinating, when you watched them, they were going back and forth on the edge of personal--not Clinton but Dole--but also when you watched Dole, he was far more responsive to government, itself. I helped save Social Security, I am for Medicare, I have supported these programs down the line, so Bill’s point--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: My mother is proud of--

HAYNES JOHNSON: That’s right.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: --Social Security.

HAYNES JOHNSON: Exactly. So Bill’s point is exactly right. If you’re trying to distinguish between them, this really didn’t draw the line that sharply I don’t think.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How different is the Clinton--you mentioned Dole and the meanness business that came out of the ‘76 campaign, the Democrat wars--what about Clinton, how was he different tonight from say ‘92? Was he at all--

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Classic distinction between being on the offensive as he was in 1992, able to attack Bush and trying to defend his record this year. One of the arguments that John Kennedy made for instance in 1960 was he thought it was very easy for him to win particularly that first debate in Chicago because he always said it is much easier to attack an incumbent’s record, in this case the incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. And I think you saw Bill Clinton probably doing very well both in ‘92 and in ‘96 in both of those different roles.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I think one difference is that in ‘92, when Clinton was asked about his patriotism because of his anti-war protests, he really responded very vigorously and talked to Bush about your father defended people’s patriotism against McCarthy. This time he didn’t rise to the bait about the drug use.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly, Haynes, how important was this, I mean, especially since history shows that debates have not changed people’s minds? Clinton went in with a very strong lead. What do you think?

HAYNES JOHNSON: I agree with what Doris--and we’ve all said, I think, in a way that it didn’t probably make the difference in the election at this point. There’s one more to come. You don’t want to prejudge these things, but I think Mark’s phrase about buckling the knees, the knock-out punch, if that’s what it took, and I do think it took something like that, this didn’t do that.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Thank you all.

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