Jay Carney and Allen West Find Common Ground
By Ruth Steinhardt
After careers spent on opposite sides of the political divide, former President Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney and former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) met Sunday on a more congenial field: the stage at the George Washington University’s Jack Morton Auditorium.
Mr. Carney and Mr. West were opponents in the annual #OnlyAtGW Debate, sponsored by the GW Program Board, College Democrats and College Republicans. POLITICO reporter and School of Media and Public Affairs alumna Hadas Gold, B.A. ’10, M.A. ’12, moderated the debate, the theme of which was “The Role of Government in a Free Society.”
But anyone expecting a gladiatorial showdown would have been disappointed. The two found common ground on most issues, from the importance of the First Amendment to Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump—at the mention of whom Mr. Carney groaned, and Mr. West, a staunch conservative, folded in comic chagrin, resting his head on his podium.
Asked whether Mr. Trump’s success could be due to a disproportionate amount of free coverage in the media, both debaters agreed that such attention was more a symptom than a cause of underlying problems.
Mr. Carney admitted that as press secretary he occasionally “fell prey” to the “convenience” of blaming the media, but said doing so was “too easy.”
“The media isn’t at fault for something like this,” he said. “The media participates in and enables the bigger phenomenon that is Trump in this cycle.”
https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/jay-carney-and-allen-west-find-common-ground
