Clinton, Dole to Join 60 Minutes
URL:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80427,00.html
Thursday, March 06, 2003
NEW YORK — Former President Clinton and his 1996 election opponent Bob Dole are joining the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes for weekly debates on national issues in the show's old "Point-Counterpoint" style.
The two agreed to 10 segments, starting Sunday night, but CBS executives say the network will consider extending the debates into next season.
"The country needs a debate that's not a screaming match," Clinton said Thursday on CBS's The Early Show. "I think too many times we have these arguments on these talk shows where they're trying to get ratings by generating heat when we ought to be trying to generate more light."
Clinton said the American public wants someone who can explain the political events effecting the world.
Dole, a former Republican Senate majority leader, said he and the former Democratic president would be a good fit for the show.
"We can be firm and provocative without being nasty," he said.
The segments will revive the "Point-Counterpoint" segments popular until they stopped airing in 1979, but will instead be called "Clinton/Dole" one week and "Dole/Clinton" the next week.
Executive producer Don Hewitt said the planned format calls for one debater to pick a topic and write a 45-second script that would be faxed to his opponent. The response would also be 45 seconds. After the initial arguments, the first debater would get 15 seconds to rebut, followed by a final 15 seconds from the opponent.
Producers of 60 Minutes hope the Clinton-Dole debates will boost ratings. The show has been in the top 10 for the past 20 years, but its popularity dropped recently, with the loss of about a million viewers in the last year. |
