Bush: Lights! Camera! Empathy!
Crossposted at Daily Kos, My Left Wing, Booman Tribune, and MyDD.
Keepers of Bush image lift stagecraft to new heights
This article was written by Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times in May of 2003. The version here, includes photographic examples, added by media educator Frank Baker. You may have seen this article when it first came out, but I think it would be timely to revisit it now, and spend some time discussing it this week as Bush prepares to make a speech *from* New Orleans on Thursday evening.
Some excerpts about Bush's celebrated stagecraft:
On Tuesday, at a speech promoting his economic plan in Indianapolis, White House aides went so far as to ask people in the crowd behind Mr. Bush to take off their ties, WISH-TV in Indianapolis reported, so they would look more like the ordinary folk the president said would benefit from his tax cut.
The images of two of the more famous "sets" used by Bush for his speeches can be found here. These sets can clearly run into money, but it's clear that this is *one* area where Bush is not concerned about "cutting spending".
The White House efforts have been ambitious — and costly. For the prime-time television address that Mr. Bush delivered to the nation on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House rented three barges of giant Musco lights, the kind used to illuminate sports stadiums and rock concerts, sent them across New York Harbor, tethered them in the water around the base of the Statue of Liberty and then blasted them upward to illuminate all 305 feet of America's symbol of freedom. It was the ultimate patriotic backdrop for Mr. Bush, who spoke from Ellis Island.
For a speech that Mr. Bush delivered last summer at Mount Rushmore, the White House positioned the best platform for television crews off to one side, not head on as other White Houses have done, so that the cameras caught Mr. Bush in profile, his face perfectly aligned with the four presidents carved in stone.
Bush's people are clearly masters of the visual, but the stark contrast between appearance and reality can be painfully ironic.
But even this White House makes mistakes. One of the more notable ones occurred in January, when Mr. Bush delivered a speech about his economic plan at a St. Louis trucking company. Volunteers for the White House covered "Made in China" stamps with white stickers on boxes arrayed on either side of the president. Behind Mr. Bush was a printed backdrop of faux boxes that read "Made in U.S.A.," the message the administration wanted to convey to the television audience.
Anyway, I was reminded of this article, because I smell another big staging in the works. From CNN:
Earlier in the day, the White House said the president will address the nation Thursday night about the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
The 9 p.m. ET address is the latest administration reaction to Katrina, which roared ashore on August 29.
"The president will talk to the American people about the recovery and the way forward on the longer-term rebuilding," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters, according to Reuters.
Bush is expected to make his address from storm-wracked Louisiana, where the president toured damaged New Orleans neighborhoods on Monday.
This *almost* writes itself. Somehow there's going to have to be footage of Bush hugging a person of color--am I right? Or better yet, being hugged--and thanked--*by* a person of color. Prepare to be manipulated. Prepare for at least a very solid *attempt* to create a visual moment of "redemption" for Dubya. Let me know how it turns out--I can never bear to watch these things. Oh, and *dang*, I just realized--Thursday night will mean that we won't get the Daily Show coverage until at least Monday.
Yeah, it's nice of Georgie Boy to go down to NO for his big speech. Wonder how many hellocopters and other relief/rescue craft he'll ground this time. It's getting so as I get sick to my stomach if I just accedentally hear him on TV. Very frustrating. I feel so strongly like there's something I ought to be doing about Georgie, but there's nothing I *can* do.
ReplyDeleteIn the PDAMA listserv digest today there was an interesting post Re poll numbers. I include it below. The moral is, don't get too excited about that 39% approval rating.
Message: 5=
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 09:22:55 -0500
From: "Jack Noman"
Subject: Re: Polls about Katrina Flawed
Thanks for sending this, Ms. Bridgewater. The Media Matters article, (and their entire site for that matter), are well worth reading. One important aspect that Media Matters does not take up specifically, however, is the basic nature of polls themselves. I did some research on the polling process some years ago. I was surprised by what I learned, and I now find that many progressives do not really fully understand how polls 'work'.
Polls are not demographically derived and/or adjusted sampling devices, as I had thought they were before I did the research. Polls must be completely random to be valid. Polling companies go to great lengths to achieve a random sample, which is actually very hard to do. As the passage you quote below indicates, a poll can be skewed out of being 'random' simply by the time of day, day of the week, or proximity to a particular holiday, that it is taken. Polling on a Friday night, for example, excludes most younger people, who are out 'engaging in mating behavior', from the sample. Therefore it is no longer random. Polling on the Jewish Sabbath, (Saturday), eliminates orthodox Jews, who are not allowed to talk on phones during the Sabbath. Etc. Etc. Even simply calling people on the phone, which is how most polls are taken, eliminates most people who do not have home phones, either because of poverty, or because they rely on cell phones, etc. Certain demographic groups are more likely to be represented in both those categories. Polling on Friday night right before the Labor Day weekend would eliminate many families leaving on camping trips, to visit relatives, etc.
But what I find that most people do not stop to think about concerning polls, is that all they measure is the latest capricious 'whims' of the masses. We often forget the nature of the general state of the consciousness of these 'masses' of Nascar Nation, soccer mom suburbia, the 'gandsta' rap mean streets, etc, etc. Progressives especially, seem to often want to assume, when the polls run in our favor, that the general citizenry has arrived at some firm 'progressive' political conviction. People like Medea Benjamin, for example, start quoting polls, and extrapolating erroneous conclusions from them, saying things like "a majority of Americans now stand firmly against the war in Iraq." (She actually said that in a recently published piece).
Well......it may be true that a majority answered "yes" when asked the question by a pollster, "Are you against the war?", but the demonstrable fact is that most Americans actually think very little about the war. In their perception it has little effect on their lives. What they think about is their outfit, and how their hair looks that day, or how cool their truck is, (or their fishing boat). 'Current events' to most Americans means whether they found Natalee's killers yet or not. For the Nascar Nation 'masses' of Americans, being 'against' the war means that they are sick of hearing about it, and especially that they are sick of hearing bad news about it. If they were hearing good news, (when they hear about it at all), if the US were winning the war, they would not be sick of it at all. Hearing about US victories would make them feel proud to be Americans. (And they would answer the above question "no" instead of "yes"). They would be proud and FOR the war, instead of ashamed (of losing) and 'against'.
This may seem like 'nit-picking', but it is actually crucial to understanding polls, the media, the nature of politics and public consciousness, etc. People like Karl Rove understand the nature of public consciousness very well.
When things are going 'bad', as they are now for people like Rove, he knows how to 'play' the media to his best advantage. He knows hows to 'seed' sound bites into people's minds, to sway their capricious opinions this way and that. He knows when it is best to say nothing, and he knows when it's best to get a crony at ABC to conduct a poll that asks questions with the properly skewed wording to produce the skewed results he wants. Media Matters can correct this all they want, after the fact, but it's far too late. The seed has already been planted. People believe what they want to believe, and when they hear something they like, something that supports their Desire, they retain it tenaciously. Merely proving beyond all doubt that is was false matters not one whit to them. This is why most Americans (whether they are 'for the war', or 'against the war'), STILL think the US is in Iraq to 'fight the War on Terror', and that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
Last night the Right unveiled what seems destined to be their main 'pitch' to 'play' the Katrina tragedy. (At least last night was the first time that I heard it). It hit me like a ton of bricks. Sheer genius. So simple, so obvious, but I sure didn't see it coming.
One of the conservative Right Wing US Senators from Louisiana, (I didn't catch his name), was interviewed on MSNBC, and good old 'hardballer' Chris Mathews lobbed him fat softballs that he knocked out of the park with ease and confidence. It went something like this:
Mathews: "All of us are disgusted when we see the mess that the government made in its initial response to the Katrina tragedy".
Senator: "You're absolutely right, Chris. What we've seen is that once again the bureacracies and the governernments have failed us. It has been individual initiative, the heroism of individual people, individual American citizens stepping forward to do rescues, to provide relief, individual self-reliant citizens, in faith-based groups, and other self-reliant community based groups, who did not wait for the government and the confused bureacracies to act, but instead rolled up their sleeves and took the individual initiative to get to work and help people who needed help. They showed exactly the kind of self-reliant individual initiative that made this nation strong, that made this nation the greatest nation on Earth........."
and blah, blah, blah...........
The sheer machiavellian 'beauty' of it is astounding. I was dumfounded as I listened. Well.......that's taking lemons and making lemonaid, (ya gotta admit). It beautifully follows the strategy of shrinking goverment 'until it can be drowned in the bathtub'. Make governement into a massive welfare program for the Corporate Elite, completely gut its ability to actually serve the needs of its citizens, especially in a time of crisis, and then when the crisis comes, just say, "See? Didn't we tell ya? Government is just no damn good!"
That's their 'pitch', folks. That's how they're going to 'play' this story.
Watch and see. When you own the media, when you have complete control of the Means of Communication, you have the power to 'get away' with this kind of sh**.
They may very well sacrifice Bush. They'll prop him up as best they can to finish out his term. But you can bet they're already grooming his successor.
And ole Chris Mathews is so very taken with himself. (He's sooo kewl). Hardball? LOL. What a ridiculous shlock. He knows who signs his paycheck, just like the rest of them. He plays 'hardball' like O'Reilly presides over a 'no spin zone'. What a hoot! But he IS very taken with himself. LOL.
It's not really funny, of course, but my momma taught me that laughing is often better than crying in despair.
'Jack'
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathleen Bridgewater"
To: "PDAMA"
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 6:27 AM
Subject: [pdama] Polls about Katrina Flawed
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509100001#20050912
When interpreting the polls, this is an excellent article.
Media Matters
Media report flawed polls on Bush performance, downplay polls with
more negative assessments
Several major media outlets used a September 2 poll conducted by The
Washington Post and ABC News to suggest that public opinion of
President Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina is split. The Post
even suggested that the poll -- which found that a plurality of
respondents, including a plurality of independents, gave Bush
negative marks -- "might offer some cheer to beleaguered White House
staffers who feared a stronger negative reaction."
But the biggest problem with coverage of the September 2 poll wasn't
the media spin that it was somehow good news for the White House that
a plurality of Americans disapprove of his handling of Katrina. The
biggest problem was that the poll was fundamentally flawed, having
been conducted on only one night (strike one), on a Friday of a
holiday weekend (strike two), with a very small sample size (strike
three).>>>>Much more excellent...
(original cut off at this point)
Also, here's the GreenPeace action page. Some neat, and sobering, stuff here.
http://members.greenpeace.org/action/?action=
Here we are, Renee. The LA Times story via TruthOut.
ReplyDeleteBush Takes Responsibility for Slow Hurricane Response
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305Y.shtml
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Reader Privacy Petitions Delivered to Capitol Hill
ReplyDeleteContact:
Oren Teicher (ABA), 800-637-0037, ext. 6611
Bridget Cross (PEN), 212-334-1660, ext. 116
Judy Platt (AAP), 202-220-4551
Bernadette Murphy (ALA), 202-412-7928
Washington, DC, Sept. 13, 2005—Petitions bearing over 200,000 signatures will be delivered today to Congressional leaders in the fight to restore the safeguards for reader privacy that were eliminated by the USA PATRIOT Act, the Campaign for Reader Privacy announced. The petitions will be presented to Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), author of the Freedom to Read Protection Act (H.R. 1157) and Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), co-author of the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act (S. 737). They will also be given to Senators who have been chosen as conferees on the legislation re-authorizing the expiring sections of the PATRIOT Act. "We are proud to present these petitions to Congress on behalf of the hundred of bookstores and libraries around the country who participated enthusiastically in the reader privacy petition campaign," Avin Mark Domnitz, the chief executive officer of the American Booksellers Association, said.
Former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, who heads the Association of American Publishers, stressed the significance of the petitions even this late in the legislative process, as a reminder to members of Congress that "Real people out there care deeply about their privacy and freedom to read."
"These petitions represent the broad grassroots support from the users and customers of libraries and bookstores across the country. The message is clear to Congress: Protect readers' privacy," said Lynne Bradley, Director of Government Relations for the American Library Association.
The Campaign for Reader Privacy is a joint initiative of the American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers and PEN American Center. Launched in February 2004, the Campaign immediately began circulating petitions in bookstores, libraries and on its web site, www.readerprivacy.org.
The Campaign for Reader Privacy is encouraged that the bills passed by the House and Senate re-authorizing the expiring sections of the PATRIOT Act include a number of the safeguards that it has been seeking for the past 19 months. While there are important protections in both bills, the Campaign strongly favors the Senate bill, S. 1389. S. 1389 restricts bookstore and library searches under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to the records of people who are suspected terrorists or people who are in contact with them.
The Campaign for Reader Privacy is urging its supporters to contact the Senate conferees to urge them to push for S. 1389. They are Arlen Specter (R-PA), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Michael DeWine (R-OH), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Carl Levin (D-MI). The House conferees have not been chosen yet.
-------------------------------------------------
The Campaign for Reader Privacy is a joint initiative of the American Library Assocation, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, and PEN American Center.
www.readerprivacy.org
To SUBSCRIBE to this list, please send a message to mailto:join-crp@mh.databack.com.
Where did everybody go?
ReplyDeleteSign MoveOn's Katrina Commission petition.
ReplyDeletehttp://political.moveon.org/katrinacommission/index.html
Catreona--I just got home myself. I posted this same entry over at Kos, and it's gotten a lot of responses. Click my name. A decent number of recommendations too, but not enough to hit the recommended list on Kos.
ReplyDeleteOK, Renee, I recommended it too, but still no go. I didn't see it on either the recommended or the recent lists. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteDid everybody see this story from yesterday? Howard is mentioned briefly.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091205S.shtml
OK, I like talking to myself.
ReplyDeleteDiseases of Rich Deprive Poor of Drugs
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/091205HA.shtml
The world's poorest people are being denied access to drugs because pharmaceutical companies are focusing their resources on medicines to treat 'American diseases' such as high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease and cancer, while drugs to tackle tuberculosis, malaria and water-borne diseases prevalent in the poorest countries have been neglected.
Catreona--I put out the call over at BFA. Bummer that there are no takers. The spewer is back. Wonder if it will help if I post the transcript of Howard on Fox (coming up in a minute).
ReplyDelete