Wednesday, September 07, 2005
One Strength Does Not Mean Others
Steve Sailor asks an interesting question and attempts an answer:
[T]he press has consistently given the Bushies the benefit of the doubt. ... [T]he most likely reason is that the press admired the skill the Administration has displayed in manipulating the press.
Timothy Crouse's book on the press coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign, The Boys on the Bus, made a similar point: if the press operation was efficient, an equally efficient voter registration operation was assumed.
The tendency of McGovern staff to air their feuds to the press while the Nixon forces were buttoned up and "on message" in public inevitably led to stories about the chaos of the McGovern effort. There are no stories about feuds in the Bush Administration. Ergo, these folks have their act together.
The "assumed competence effect" is also applied to generals and businessmen moving into politics: "Ross Perot invented EDS so he would make a good president."
|posted by Jim on 9:29 PM|
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