The president, the press, and the war-making power: an analysis of media coverage prior to the Persian Gulf War.

Lewis, David A. ; Rose, Roger P.

Edward S. Corwin wrote at midcentury, "Taken by and large, the history of the presidency has been a history of aggrandizement" (1957, 307). At least with respect to war powers, recent years only have bolstered Corwin's observation. The Constitution vests the power to declare war with Congress, yet Presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton each initiated armed conflict with other nations while leaving Congress almost completely out of the decision process. Claiming the inherent authority to use military force unilaterally, these presidents consistently resisted the efforts of Congress to reassert itself in the war powers arena, most notably by ignoring all but the notification provisions of the War Powers Resolution. Attempting to explain presidential dominance in this policy area, scholars have focused on the relative institutional capabilities and incentives of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary (Moe and Howell 1998; Koh 1988). As a general rule, presidents are institutionally well equipped to stretch their constitutional powers to the limit, and perhaps exceed them, while Congress and the courts are poorly suited to resist the expansion of executive power.

Yet there is more to the story than institutional powers and incentives. Media coverage may also enhance or curtail the executive's advantage in the war powers domain. (1) Although war reporting has been the subject of great scholarly interest, there exists no systematic study of how the media covers the constitutional politics of war making. (2) We use Lance Bennett's (1994, 1990) "indexing hypothesis" to explain patterns of media attention to war powers during a five-month period prior to the Persian Gulf War. Bennett and others (Mermin 1999; Hallin 1986) have argued that the spectrum of foreign policy debate reported in the media is a function of the spectrum of foreign policy debate in Washington, DC. Journalists tend to report on a greater range of opinion when influential government actors are in open disagreement with one another. Conversely, when consensus prevails, the scope of opinion and policy debate will constrict. Another possible outcome is that without elite conflict, the story will dry up and fall off the media's agenda altogether.

Journalists operate under a number of constraints that help explain why indexing is so prevalent in the coverage of foreign policy. One of the most well-established findings in media research is that reporters turn to public officials first and foremost as sources for political stories (Mermin 1999; Sigal 1986; Hallin 1986; Gans 1979). Journalists rely on government officials to obtain quick and inexpensive access to information, particularly in foreign policy, where reporters tend to have less experience and familiarity (Berry 1990). Journalists are also constrained by the norms of "newsworthiness" (involving criteria such as timeliness and conflict) and "balanced" and "neutral" reporting. Additionally, in the context of war reporting, journalists open themselves up to charges of biased and un-American coverage if they present criticism of U.S. military action, especially without the cover of the opposition party making the case against the president.

Thus, in the absence of institutional conflict, indexing would predict a dearth of war powers reporting during the months leading up to the Gulf War. Alternatively, it is not implausible that journalists would devote some degree of coverage to war powers even if the issue were not subject to a high-profile debate among political actors in Washington. Media inattention to an issue in the absence of elite conflict would not be surprising if the issue at hand were obscure or unimportant. Yet this is certainly not the case here. In the wake of Vietnam and the War Powers Resolution, the question of which institution holds the leash on the dog of war has remained a source of controversy and debate among scholars, journalists, and politicians. War powers was a prominent issue in the 1983 deployment of troops to Lebanon, the 1987 Kuwaiti tanker re-flagging, and most recently in the 1999 bombing of Serbia (Mitchell 1999; Crabb and Holt 1992, 147-50; Katzman 1990). Furthermore, the momentous nature of the decision to go to war--particularly acute in the months before Operation Desert Storm, when the prospect of military conflict with Iraq was very real--is naturally a subject of intense concern among citizens and political elites. And as we discuss below, during this period journalists had ample opportunity to explore a wide range of issues relating to the Gulf crisis. Thus, although we would not expect the media to transform itself into an advocate for Congress's foreign policy prerogatives, neither would we expect the media to disregard the war powers question altogether.

As Jonathan Mermin (1999) points out, given that conflict among government officials is newsworthy and that the words and actions of these officials often constitute important diplomatic events, we would naturally expect some correlation between debate in Washington and the range of viewpoints expressed in media coverage. What is of great interest, writes Mermin, is whether "critical perspectives" are "ignored or marginalized in the news if not first expressed in Washington" (pp. 5-6). Reporting on war powers may be considered a critical perspective insofar as such coverage reflects the constitutional role of Congress in authorizing war, thus presenting an alternative to the position advanced by recent presidents. (3)

The question of whether media will independently cover war powers warrants attention from those who believe that war making should be a shared constitutional power and oppose leaving this decision to the discretion of the president. The media potentially can serve as something of a political check on the executive by raising and reporting on the war powers question and thereby helping place it on the political agenda. Independent reporting on war powers may encourage members of Congress to challenge the president. Robert Entman and Benjamin Page (1994) make the point nicely:

 Given the president's constitutional and traditional power over the foreign
 policy apparatus, reporting that circulates information and opinion at odds
 with the administration is vital to the possibility of democracy in foreign
 policy.... Reporting independent of the administration can catalyze and
 embolden elite opposition, further bolstering democratic debate. (P. 83)

Moreover, public debate on war powers may complicate the president's leadership task if his administration is required to anticipate potential criticism or expend resources to push the issue off the agenda.

Finally, Congress has the more compelling constitutional case. That is, presidential claims of an inherent and constitutionally derived power to invade other nations without congressional approval are simply untenable (Adler 2000; Fisher 1995; Glennon 1991; although see Mervin 2000). This especially holds true in conflicts such as the Persian Gulf that unambiguously may be defined as "war" and that pose no credible military threat to the United States. (4) Thus, a robust war powers debate may cast doubt on the legitimacy of unilateral presidential action.

Congress, of course, can assert its constitutional prerogatives and guarantee that it is not ignored. Yet members of Congress are often reluctant to challenge the administration on decisions to employ military force because of their political incentive to avoid visible and politically risky position taking (Lindsay 1994, 140). This reluctance figured prominently in executive-legislative interactions during the months leading up to the Persian Gulf War (Zaller 1994; Spitzer 1993). If presidents use or plan to use military force unilaterally and face only muted or isolated criticism from Congress, media inattention to war powers serves the interests of the president by effectively sweeping the issue under the rug.

Data and Research Design

The Persian Gulf War offers a best-case scenario for research into the media's treatment of war-related issues (Entman and Page 1994). In contrast to the urgent, short-term actions in Grenada and Panama, actual warfare came only after a protracted military buildup and debate period lasting more than five months. This gave journalists considerable time to investigate and explore a wide range of topics pertaining to the conflict. Most important for our purposes, during the initial phase of the military buildup, there was very little congressional opposition to the Bush policy (Gergen 1992). Indeed, this initial phase was marked by "extraordinary support for the president's Gulf policy among elites" (Dorman and Livingston 1994, 65). The impact of this support was strengthened by the fact that Congress was in recess for most of August and, thus, almost out of the picture during the early stages of the crisis. Although members of Congress expressed some reservations beforehand, opposition from Capitol Hill began in earnest after November 8, 1990, when President Bush announced sending an additional 150,000 troops to give U.S. forces an offensive capability. After that point, several prominent Democrats such as Senator Sam Nunn publicly opposed the use of military force against Iraq and argued that Bush did not have the authority to wage war at his own discretion. This variation in congressional support enables us to assess how the media covered war powers in the absence and presence of elite conflict.

To examine how extensively the media covered war powers during the months leading up to the Persian Gulf War, we conducted a content analysis of three data sources--transcripts of ABC's World News Tonight; the New York Times; and, from Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, questions asked by journalists at presidential news conferences and question-and-answer sessions--for the period from August 2, 1990, to January 13, 1991. We first briefly discuss each of these data sources in turn.

The presidential press conference serves as a prominent means by which presidents interact with the media and convey information to the public. Although presidents may generally play a dominant role at news conferences, they do not exercise control over the content of the questions put to them by journalists. Therefore, these questions are reasonably good indicators of which topics the White House press corps considers important and newsworthy. Furthermore, questions asked at news conferences are often prospective in nature: "what will happen next month?" rather than "what happened today?" For example, Bush was repeatedly asked during the months leading up to Desert Storm whether he would take offensive military action to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and whether the prospects for war with Iraq were increasing or decreasing in probability. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to expect that journalists might look to the future and raise the issue of war powers even in the absence of imminent conflict.

The importance of including a network news source in this study is obvious: no other news medium reaches more people. Although the news stories presented in a half-hour broadcast are necessarily briefer and more superficial than print sources, they have the potential to influence public opinion profoundly (Iyengar and Kinder 1987, 1).

Compared to half-hour broadcasts, the question of institutional prerogatives relating to war powers will be addressed most thoroughly in major newspapers, which provide greater breadth of coverage. Thus, newspapers have a critical role in raising the issue of war powers independent of policy makers as well as in reporting ongoing debate among policy makers. The value of the New York Times for this kind of analysis is well understood--no other domestic newspaper covers foreign affairs in as much length and depth. Moreover, the Times is arguably the most important source of news information to policy makers, and its coverage provides cues to mass media outlets (Edelman 1988). Our data from the Times include news articles, editorials, and opinion pieces.

For each data source, we identify the number of stories or questions that make reference to the following topics: (1) the president's formal or legal authority to initiate or engage in military force, (2) congressional authorization or formal approval of military force, (3) the War Powers Resolution, or (4) specific constitutional powers (e.g., commander-in-chief, declare war). As shorthand, we refer to these points collectively as war powers. Initially, we compare the number of news items (i.e., questions, broadcasts, articles, and editorials/opinion pieces) addressing war powers to the total number of news items on the Gulf crisis during two distinct periods prior to the start of fighting: (1) the establishment phase, from Iraq's August 2, 1990, invasion to Bush's November 8 announcement of an offensive deployment of 150,000 additional troops; and (2) the nominal debate phase, from November 9 to January 13, 1991 (Dorman and Livingston 1994, 65). To assess whether the reporting represents an indexing of news, we then analyze the timing of coverage in relation to congressional hearings and debates on war powers, legal action taken by members of Congress in response to developments in the Gulf, and public statements on war powers by executive branch officials or members of Congress. (5) Finally, we conduct a content analysis to evaluate the extent to which reporting presented the perspective that congressional authorization was required prior to the initiation of armed conflict.

Findings

Our first cut at the data is presented in Table 1, which presents the number and percentage of news items on war powers for both the establishment phase and the debate phase. (6) Two points deserve mention. First, as we might expect, out of the total coverage on the Persian Gulf conflict, the percentage referring to war powers is small--less than 10 in each category with the exception of New York Times editorials and opinion pieces during the debate phase. (7) Second, the media paid more attention to war powers in the debate phase than in the establishment phase; the percentage of reporting on this topic more than tripled in each category. The only exception is the Times editorial page, which published four editorials in the first period and six in the second; there was a marked increase, however, in the number of stories and opinion pieces.

To explain whether this general pattern represents an indexing of news, we examine the amount of war powers coverage for each week between August 2 and January 12. Figure 1 shows that there was almost a complete lack of media attention to war powers during the first two-and-a-half months of the crisis. Between August 2 and October 14, not one of ABC's World News Tonight broadcasts referred to war powers. Even more striking, 356 questions were directed to Bush at news conferences before a journalist first raised the war powers issue on October 29. In this early period, Congress overwhelmingly approved of the administration's use of sanctions against Iraq as well as the defensive deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and members deliberately avoided raising questions on war powers. At the Bush administration's request, lawmakers even removed references to the War Powers Resolution in resolutions of support for the administration's policy passed in early October (Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1990, 733). In an extensive chronology of the Gulf conflict, Resende-Santos (1992) indicates there were only two points during this period when members of Congress expressed unease over Bush's policy, and these reservations fell far short of sharp criticism. (8)

Could this media inattention to war powers simply reflect the possibility that conflict with Iraq was perceived as distant and perhaps unlikely? A review of media coverage over the first two months of the crisis points to the contrary. (9) During the first week of the crisis, one reporter asked Bush if he was "prepared for a prolonged ground war," while another asked, "Why not use [U.S. troops] to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait?" Throughout August, September, and October, the theme, "is war more or less likely?" was a common feature at Bush's news conferences. Similarly, ABC did not downplay the likelihood of conflict in the Gulf. Stories in August alone featured the following: U.S. military options and the performance capabilities of Iraqi troops (August 6); "worst case" military scenarios, including discussion of chemical weapons (August 8); U.S. infantry training and problems faced in desert fighting (August 9); a possible Iraqi invasion of Jordan designed to draw Israel into the conflict (August 12); the possibility of an Iraqi attack and vulnerabilities of U.S. forces in the region (August 17); U.S. military exercises and a discussion of Iraqi Scud and U.S. Patriot missiles (August 21); and an outline of the continued U.S. buildup (August 27). We do not contend that journalists viewed conflict with Iraq as imminent in August and September, but their reporting suggests that they neither perceived nor portrayed war as remote, unlikely, or implausible. Rather, their coverage (as well as events themselves) suggested that war in the Gulf was a distinct possibility.

We note, however, that media attention to the constitutional dimension of the Gulf crisis did surface on two occasions during the early months of the crisis. In September, the New York Times published one article and one opinion piece that did reflect independent, press-initiated reporting on war powers. Thus, the Times coverage does not conform as tightly to the indexing hypothesis as our two other data sources.

Figure 1 shows that press attention to war powers increased during the second half of October. The rise in coverage coincided with congressional hearings that highlighted the constitutional questions underlying Gulf policy and marked the first significant clash between the Bush administration and members of Congress. In hearings held by three House and Senate committees on October 17 and 18, Secretary of State Baker rebuffed the suggestion by committee members that Bush obtain congressional approval before initiating any military action. Soon thereafter, House and Senate Democratic leaders pushed for a formal mechanism to increase consultation with the White House--and were again rejected by the administration--and then attempted, without success, to set up procedures for calling a special session of Congress (Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1990, 732). Interestingly, during this period, the media coverage itself indicated that journalists were following cues from government leaders. The first war powers question posed to Bush was asked at an October 29 exchange with reporters: "Mr. President, Senator Cohen said this morning that you should not commit troops to action in the Middle East without congressional approval. How do you feel about that?" Additionally, each of the three October broadcasts that referred to war powers focused on executive-legislative interactions.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The first dramatic increase in war powers coverage came during the week of November 11-17, which followed the administration's decision to send an additional 150,000 troops to the Gulf. The announcement triggered a "mini-firestorm" of opposition on Capitol Hill, especially among Senate Democrats (Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1990, 737). Influential members of the Senate, including Sam Nunn and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, expressed concerns that Bush was "exceeding constitutional limits" and called for "congressional approval of a decision to go to war" (Resende-Santos 1992). Two events in the latter half of November intensified the constitutional clash between the White House and Capitol Hill. First, on November 20, Representative Ron Dellums and fifty-three other members of Congress brought suit in a U.S. District Court seeking an injunction to prevent President Bush from going to war without first securing congressional approval. Second, between November 25 and December 1, the week with the third highest amount of coverage in our time frame, four congressional committees held a new set of hearings. The Senate Armed Services Committee, under Chairman Nunn, aired numerous criticisms of administration policies and priorities. The hearings concluded with public disagreement between Secretary of Defense Cheney and committee members over whether the administration could use military force in lieu of prior approval from Congress (Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1990, 742).

On November 29, the United Nations Security Council authorized the use of force against Iraq. This led some members of Congress to question Bush's focus on international, but not congressional, authorization. For most of December, lawmakers continued to discuss an authorization mechanism, consulting at times with the White House over passing something similar to the UN resolution (Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1990, 746). The debate in Congress took place in the context of a multinational task force sanctioned by the UN. Congress ultimately did not vote on a formal declaration of war, but its functional equivalent: a joint resolution authorizing the president to use military force to implement UN Security Council resolutions calling for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. (10)

Throughout November and December, members of Congress were strongly divided over whether to take a firm stand against the administration (Zaller 1994). Against the spectacle of indecision, the New York Times editorialized for an authorizing vote. In the seven editorials and eight opinion pieces on the subject of war powers from November until early January, all but one supported a vote. Not surprisingly, an intensive amount of media interest occurred during the days before an authorizing vote was finally scheduled on January 12. At this point, the institutional conflict between the Democratic leadership and the White House catapulted war powers to the top of the media's agenda. The televised Senate debate in particular had all the trappings of good political drama; it was routinely described as "dramatic" and "historic."

The data in Figure 1 depict the timing of war powers reporting, but they do not tell us whether the media presented the critical perspective of Congress's constitutional role in authorizing war. For example, the coverage conceivably could have emphasized the dominant role of the president as commander-in-chief while largely downplaying the role of Congress. Figure 2, therefore, depicts the content of war powers reporting. Specifically, we conducted a content analysis to identify the "congressional perspective" (that congressional authorization is required prior to the initiation of military force or that the president should seek congressional authorization) as well as the "administration perspective" (that the president does not require authorization from Congress to initiate military force or that the president should not seek congressional authorization). A news item may present both, one, or neither of these perspectives. (11) Almost all questions on war powers asked by journalists at news conferences raised the role of Congress in authorizing war. However, because the questions themselves did not typically convey either perspective, but rather asked for a presidential comment on the issue, we limit our analysis to ABC News and the New York Times.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Figure 2 displays the results of the content analysis and reveals that the congressional perspective received the lion's share of the coverage. For example, eleven ABC broadcasts presented only the congressional perspective, one presented only the administration perspective, seven included both viewpoints, and four included neither viewpoint. Thus, the congressional perspective was presented in eighteen of the twenty-three ABC broadcasts (78.2 percent) compared to just eight reflecting the administration perspective (34.7 percent). A similar pattern holds for articles and editorials from the New York Times. (12) In terms of the overall coverage for all news items combined, the congressional perspective was presented in 79.2 percent of the coverage compared to 39.0 percent for the administration perspective.

These findings appear to be somewhat inconsistent with the media's norm of balanced reporting (Tuchman 1972). One possible explanation for the prominence of the congressional perspective is that lawmakers opposing the Gulf policy had an incentive to press their case in the media and thereby place war powers on the political agenda. In contrast, the Bush administration sought to downplay a constitutional constraint on its behavior. Thus, once the media began to devote attention to war powers, its coverage worked to the advantage of those members of Congress who sought an authorizing vote insofar as the congressional perspective was conveyed to the public more frequently than the administration's alternative viewpoint. Taken together, Figures 1 and 2 lead us to our central conclusion: journalists did report on the salient critical perspective, but not until war powers became a source of debate in Washington.

Conclusion

Wars are idiosyncratic events in many respects, and we do not argue that the manner in which war powers was treated by the media in the Gulf War will hold for other conflicts. Rather, because of the length of the military buildup and the pattern of congressional support and opposition, the Gulf War serves as the best available case to examine the issue of media independence. For more than two months after the initial deployment of U.S. armed forces to the Gulf in August 1990, our media sources were almost completely silent on a question that strikes at the heart of democratic rule in foreign affairs: Did George Bush have the power as commander-in-chief to commit the nation to war against Iraq single-handedly? This lack of attention stemmed not from a perception that war with Iraq was only a remote possibility or that the issue itself was obscure but from an absence of conflict among political elites. The role of Congress in authorizing war in the Persian Gulf was marginalized by our media sources, that is, virtually ignored until the issue became a source of controversy in Washington. Thus, our findings lend support to a central contention of the indexing literature: if there is little debate on a foreign policy issue in Washington, then there is little debate in the news. Like Mermin (1999), Zaller and Chiu (1996), Bennett (1990), and Hallin (1986), we found that media coverage of foreign policy was largely passive rather than independent, with journalists taking cues about the newsworthiness of stories from official actors in Washington.

What are the implications of these findings for the presidency? We began by asking whether the media might serve as something of a check against unilateral presidential war making by independently reporting on war powers and, in doing so, help to place the issue on the political agenda. Such reporting would amplify public debate on the power of Congress to declare war and thereby decrease the likelihood that this constitutional power would be regarded as a quaint relic of a bygone era, perhaps venerated in theory but unheeded in practice. Our findings suggest that the executive's expansive war-making claims will not be debated or even brought to the public's attention unless members of Congress first challenge the administration--which most are loathe to do. Although the media are undoubtedly vigilant in "policing" certain aspects of the Constitution, most notably the First Amendment, in the Gulf War, journalists gave President Bush a free pass on war powers during the critical early months of policy formulation. Ultimately, we agree with Justice Robert Jackson's observation in Youngstown v. Ohio (343 U.S. 579 [1952]): "only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers." Those who believe the decision to go to war should be a shared constitutional power, and who oppose leaving this decision to the discretion of the executive, cannot expect the media to guarantee the robust public debate that this question surely deserves.

TABLE 1
Media Attention to War Powers during
Establishment Phase and Debate Phase

 Establishment Phase Debate Phase
 (August 2 to (November 9, 1990,
Data Source November 8, 1990) to January 13, 1991)

News conferences
 Total Gulf War questions 427 269
 War powers questions 1 (0.23) 10 (3.7)
ABC News
 Total Gulf War stories 247 208
 War powers stories 4 (1.62) 19 (9.13)
New York Times
 Total Gulf War articles 1,200 589
 War powers articles 4 (0.03) 29 (4.9)
 Total Gulf War editorials 175 122
 War powers editorials 4 (2.2) 17 (13.9)

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States
and ABC World News Tonight transcripts from August 2, 1990,
to January 13, 1991; New York Times Year in Review, 1990 and
1991, using the keyword Middle East.

Note: Percentage of war powers items are given in parentheses.
New York Times editorials include both editorials and opinion
pieces. News conferences include question-and-answer sessions
and exchanges with reporters.

(1.) Certainly presidents have behaved as though this is the case. For example, during the Persian Gulf conflict, officials in the Bush administration devoted intensive attention to image management, press coverage, and public opinion (Manheim 1994; Zaller 1994, 258; Gergen 1992). Furthermore, there is little doubt among scholars that media coverage exerts a critical influence on public opinion and can thereby help rally the citizenry behind the president and bolster his political standing in Washington (Mermin 1999; Zaller and Chiu 1996; Allen et al. 1994; Bennett and Paletz 1994, part IV).

(2.) Scholarship on the media's reporting on the Gulf War has focused primarily on the coverage of dissenting views and on the restrictions placed on the press by the U.S. military during the conflict. See, for example, Bennett and Paletz (1994), Allen et al. (1994), and Fialka (1991). Rozell (1996, 75-80) and Entman and Page (1994, 87-88) comment briefly on the media's reporting on war powers during the Gulf War.

(3.) Our study differs from those of Mermin (1999) and Bennett (1990) in at least one important respect. These authors examine the range of dissenting voices expressed in the news from nonofficial sources (grassroots organizations, interest groups, academics, etc.). Because we are interested in a constitutional question, we do not focus on policy opposition. (Some members of Congress supported the administration's policy in the Gulf crisis but nevertheless argued that congressional approval of military force was required under the Constitution.) Furthermore, there are essentially two positions at the heart of the war powers debate (congressional authorization either is or is not required), each of which reflects an "official" (i.e., institutional or governmental) perspective. Therefore, we do not focus on "the range of social voices" (Bennett 1990, 107) or viewpoints deviating from the perspective of "official Washington." Nevertheless, coverage indicating that congressional authorization is required prior to the initiation of force, or that the administration should seek congressional authorization, is indeed "critical" coverage in that it voices opposition to the executive's expansive war-making claims. The critical perspective focusing on the president alone--as opposed to the U.S. government as a whole--is appropriate because the president is the dominant institutional actor in war making.

(4.) There is no doubt that under the Constitution, presidents may act unilaterally to "repel sudden invasions" or respond to other direct military threats against the United States or the lives of U.S. citizens (Glennon 1990, 86-87). Additionally, unilateral action may not injure the separation of powers in cases involving humanitarian relief and peacekeeping efforts wherein conflict is likely and perhaps even in cases of "low-intensity conflict" (Dellinger 1995). These cases may fairly be placed outside the ambit of "war," although we do not necessarily endorse this conclusion. In this study, however, we restrict our focus to the American-led invasion of Kuwait and Iraq, which can be defined as "war" even under the most parsimonious definitions of the term.

(5.) We identify these public activities from two extensive chronologies of the Gulf conflict, one compiled by Resende-Santos (1992) and the other by the Congressional Quarterly Almanac.

(6.) For the New York Times, we used the Year in Review to identify all articles, editorials, and opinion pieces that could contain references to war powers. We began by identifying all pieces that dealt with any of the original four war powers categories, but we also inspected stories on congressional support or opposition toward U.S. policy or U.S. military actions and those stories on public support or opposition toward U.S. policy or U.S. military actions. This produced 123 items, from which we obtained 54 that contained codeable statements concerning war powers. (A large percentage of stories on Congress and, especially, public opinion, made no reference to war powers.) The New York Times data for Figures 1 and 2 are based on these 54 items.

(7.) Additionally, war powers was a focus of the lead story in only eight of the twenty-three ABC broadcasts and mentioned on the front page of just twelve of the thirty-three New York Times articles.

(8.) On August 27, 1990, "signs of congressional unease over Bush's Gulf policy begin to surface. Les Aspin and other Democratic leaders caution that Bush does not have a mandate to take military action." On September 26, the "House Foreign Affairs Committee approves a resolution endorsing Bush's handling of the Gulf crisis but warns against taking offensive military action" (Resende-Santos 1992).

(9.) James Bennet (1991) writes that the November 8, 1990, announcement of an offensive deployment "shouldn't have come as a shock, since for more than two months the nation's top dailies and Nightline had been running news that suggested American forces were preparing to attack, not only defend" (p. 359).

(10.) We examined our media sources to determine whether journalists blurred the distinction between congressional and United Nations authorization. More specifically, we examined whether the lack of attention to war powers during the months of August, September, and early October, 1990, might be explained by media focus on the UN as an alternative source of authority for President Bush. We found no reporting of the Bush administration's preparing to seek UN authorization for the use of force or any mention that such action might substitute for congressional approval. Once the administration sought UN authorization in November, the media did report that some administration officials considered such authorization as an independent source of presidential authority to commit the nation to war. However, the dominant viewpoint voiced in our data sources was that UN approval should not be regarded as a substitute for congressional approval. Thus, we do not believe that the issue of UN authorization blurred or diverted media attention away from congressional powers.

(11.) To assess reliability in coding these perspectives, each author read all twenty-three ABC transcripts that contained references to war powers, and one of us read a random sample of twenty New York Times pieces already coded by the other. We agreed on 86.9 percent of the ABC stories and 85 percent of the Times pieces. Through discussion, we reached agreement on the remaining six items of disagreement.

(12.) For New York Times articles, nine presented only the congressional perspective, two presented only the administration perspective, fifteen included both viewpoints, and seven included neither viewpoint. For Times editorials and opinion pieces, fourteen presented only the congressional perspective, none presented only the administration perspective, five included both viewpoints, and two included neither viewpoint. Thus, the congressional perspective was presented in 72.9 percent of the articles and 90.4 percent of the editorials and opinion pieces.

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AUTHORS' NOTE: The authors would like to thank Caroline Hartzell and Mary Rose for their helpful comments.

David A. Lewis is associate professor of political science at Frostburg State University. He has published an analysis of televised presidential speeches in American Politics Quarterly and is presently conducting research on just war and U.S. military interventions.

Roger P. Rose is associate professor of political science at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois. He has published on the public influences on U.S. grand strategy and patterns of foreign aid assistance donations, and he is presently working on a study of human rights activity by the U.S. Congress.