Daily Blague

Over the weekend, I took a look at Daily Howler, the often intemperate scourge of journalism. One thing that drives the author, Bob Somerby, bonkers is the self-censorship that has induced mainstream journalists to take the Bush Administration at its own word. Last Friday, Mr Somerby scolded E J Dionne, of the Washington Post, for making the following remark: 

More than any of his predecessors, President Bush understands the conventions of journalism and the traditions of political debate. These require that respectful attention be paid to whatever claims the president makes. Journalists who have the temerity to question whether the claims ring true (or whether the numbers add up) can count on being pummeled as liberal ideologues, even when they are only seeking the facts.

The last part of this passage certainly appears to state the truth. It's as simple as the chanting at a football game. The Administration's My Way/Highway philosophy is rigorously enforced. Criticize any of the President's men, and you will promptly and unthinkingly be plastered with "liberal bias" labels, or some other equally unlovely marker accusing the bearer of self-interest. Once applied, these labels are impossible to remove quickly, and the awkward business of peeling them off makes dignified rebuttal impossible. This has made reporters cautious and, yes, a mite obsequious. Or, in Mr Somerby's view, cowardly.

Sorry—there simply is no “convention of journalism” which requires respectful treatment of bald-faced misstatements. As civics textbooks tell your eighth-graders, traditions of journalism require skeptical, aggressive “attention” to such misstatements by presidents.

Mr Somerby is probably correct, from a journalism-school point of view, to deny the existence of Mr Dionne's "conventions." But I can't see that scolding journalists is going to get anyone anywhere. What if we rewrite Mr Dionne's observations thus:

More than any of his predecessors, President Bush understands the a sizable bloc of American voters is tired of the conventions of journalism and the traditions of political debate.

Everything that Mr Bush does in public is meant to be seen by his supporters. This is so obvious that we forget earlier times in which statesmen did not calibrate every gesture to the fine-grained prejudices of their constituents, who could be presumed to be paying less than constant attention. Cable TV and the Blogosphere have eliminated such unguarded moments. The President, accordingly, does not answer questions from the Press. He retrofits questions into launch pads for the statements that he knows his supporters want to hear. The conventions of journalism are utterly irrelevant to these people - where they are not actually objectionable. These people have had it with political debate, which they understand to be loaded with terms of art that don't quite mean what the man in the street thinks they mean. These people are sick and tired of seeing their leaders harassed by eggheady East Coasters. They demand that he be shown the "respectful attention" to which their support entitles him.

The President's success does not stem from the success of his policies. What success? It does not stem from widespread support for his Administration's often radical ideas about changing government in particular and the United States in general. It has nothing to do with actions, but is a response to George W Bush's image. I used to wonder why the Republican Party chose this man as its candidate for the highest job in the land, but now I see the genius of Karl Rove's Machiavellian shrewdness. In Mr Bush, the Republicans presented a man who would strongly appeal to a hitherto overlooked bloc of voters while so infuriating the liberal enemy that it would be reduced to spluttering squawks of outrage.

(For a concise description of the hitherto overlooked bloc of voters, see the exchange of letters among Andrew Hacker, Paul Cohen, and Mark Danner at the back of the current issue of the New York Review [Vol 52, No. 4 - not online as of this writing].)