A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days: The Myna Bird Presidency

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The Myna Bird Presidency

Posted by Joseph Britt on Thu Dec 15, 2005 at 04:20:26 PM EST

All campaigning politicians repeat themselves often. They have to. If you are giving six or eight speeches a day to different audiences, it is likely your speech will be at least partly new to most of them even if it is deadeningly familiar to you. Moreover the best way to get the news media to report what you want them to is to say it over and over.

A successful Presidency can't face difficult situations in the same way. Public support for a President's policies is too closely linked to public confidence in the President himself to risk leaving the impression that he is not really on top of events and is instead just spinning. Also, campaigns end. A politician's message only has to be persuasive until the votes are counted. Presidents may have to deal with tough problems for years.

Not everyone agrees with this. Look at the results of an analysis of President Bush's four recent speeches on Iraq. It found

"...dozens of phrases repeated in all four. Bush invoked "democracy" 83 times, "freedom" 68 times and "security" 75 times. The president invoked "victory" 10 times in the 30-minute address -- more than the six victory mentions on Monday but fewer than the 11 on Dec. 7 and the 15 on Nov. 30."

This is not a new thing in Bush's Presidency:

"Saddam Hussein failed to meet the "just demands" of the world, Bush said for the 14th time, according to a search of the White House's Web site. Congress saw "the same intelligence" about Iraq's weapons as Bush did, he said for the 102nd time. "Free nations are peaceful nations," he said for the 19th time.

For the 21st time, the president affirmed that the world's most dangerous men should not have the "world's most dangerous weapons." For the 33rd time, he extolled the "spread of freedom." And, for the 126th time in a speech as president, he said capitulation to terrorists will not 'happen on my watch.'"

Does this sound like a man in charge of running a war? It sounds to me like a man trying to sell a war being run by someone else. It's probably not quite fair to say that Bush's speeches read as if they were written for a myna bird. They do read like the speeches of a politician who is still campaigning, who has never stopped campaigning, and who may not really have his heart in anything else.

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The Myna Bird Presidency | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)

It's Better He Do What He's Competent At (none / 0) (#1)
by Appalled Moderate on Fri Dec 16, 2005 at 09:17:36 AM EST

I'd be curious about how a comparison with FDR's speeches during the early part of the depression (the Fireside Chats, which are online) or during WWII would work out. Or Truman's, during the Korean War. I'm not sure the result would be all that different. In wars of old, you couldn't escape the continued case for war. In today's media environment, all one hears is the GI body count.

I don't think re-selling the war is a bad thing for the President to be doing right now. If he can keep the public from demanding "out now", our policymakers (which may or may not be the President) will continue to have some room to operate. Otherwise, the choice becomes the Murtha plan today, or six months from now, without much concern for whether the terrorists get a bright shiny base to operate in or not.

The presidency has a PR function, and has since Teddy Roosevelt. (The Bully Pulpit, and all that.) It's not his only function, but it is quite important. And, frankly, what Bush is doing now is certainly more relevant to current events than the great Social Security tour that wasted his time during the first part of the year.

The Myna Bird Presidency | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)