Reagan's Son [The NYT Sunday Magazine's cover story re: President GW Bush]

The NY Times Sunday Magazine - Cover Story ^ | Jan. 26, 2003 | Bill Keller

[summer]

By BILL KELLER
George W. Bush is what no one predicted — a powerful president with a pure conservative agenda and a gambler's instinct. By comparison, Ronald Reagan may look like a moderate.

Go to Article -- CLICK HERE.

• Poll: Is George W. Bush a centrist or a conservative? |

Poll Results [90% - conservative; 9% - centrist; 1% - don't know]

[summer]

Well, I have not yet had a chance to read this 12-page article, as I am about to fall asleep, having stayed up all night to do some school work on a project for my students.

However, I did see this article mentioned on Dem sites, where it seems they are already cursing out the NYT, and crying their eyes out that the NYT Sunday Magazine's cover would feature our nation's president two days before his state of the union address.

The Dem posters hated this NYT article. I guess that means people here will like it....

[summer]

OK, here's the part, below, that's got the Dem posters writing letters to the editor of the NYT. [And, BTW, the author of this NYT article states in the article that his own father owned an oil company.] -- Excerpt from the NYT Sunday magazine:

What Bush is striving for, on the evidence of the choices he has made so far, is bold in its ambition: markets unleashed, resources exploited. A progressive tax system leveled, a country unashamed of wealth. Government entitlements gradually replaced by thrift, self-reliance and private good will. The safety net strung closer to the ground. Government itself infused with, in some cases supplanted by, the efficiency and accountability of a well-run corporation. A court system dedicated to protecting property and private enterprise and enforcing individual responsibility. A global common market that hums to the tune of American productivity. In the world, America rampant -- unfettered by international law, unflinching when challenged, unmatchable in its might, more interested in being respected than in being loved.

[The Great Satan]

No wonder the DUers are having a hissy fit!

[summer]

Oh, really, they are just sobbing over there. It's sad.

[kattracks]

BTTT

[petuniasevan]

What a great article. I'll bet the DU'ers et al are crying in their chardonnay and latte.

If you don't subscribe to the NY online paper, use this to log on:

Name: annoying

Password: annoying

[Crossbow Eel]

It has to be giving a bunch on FR a hissy fit as well?

[billhilly]

What is the url to their website?

[MJY1288]

Username = hildebeast

Password = isaliar

This works also :-)

[The Great Satan]

Actually a pretty interesting article.

[petuniasevan]

This should do it. Logins are listed in this thread, if you need them.

The NY Times URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/

[billhilly]

Thanks, but I was asking for the DU website. I want to see a miracle. For leftists to be upset by a NYT article has to qualify.

[summer]

Here's a "review" of this article from a Dem site:

BILL KELLER: ON BENDED KNEE TO DUBYA

Just Like Reagan, All Right: Media's Cover Up, That Is Keller Sprays Teflon Just Like 20 Years Ago

In what the New York Times Magazine is billing as a major political piece on the eve of the State of the Union address, Bill Keller has deployed the same protective falsehood maneuvers that the media favored in covering (and covering up for) Ronald Reagan twenty years ago.

Above all, Keller makes factually inaccurate assertions about public support for Bush, making Dubya seem much more popular than reports in his own newspaper and others show he is.

These erroneous claims form the entire premise of Keller’s piece. Despite all of the missteps, scandals, and other disasters of this administration, Keller writes, “Bush’s approval ratings held firm and high. Nothing stuck.”

The wonder, to Keller, is “Bush’s seeming invincibility to bad news.”

Then Keller is off and running, getting sycophantic quotations from Reagan’s sycophant, the ex-convict Michael Deaver (ex-con? yes, but Keller doesn’t tell you that), making Bush out to be a bold radical conservative in the Reagan mold who remains oh so popular.

But Keller’s reporting is just as inaccurate as the reporting on Reagan’s popularity was way back when. There’s a reprise theme here, all right – in how reporters and pundits like Keller insist on covering Bush with Teflon based on falsehoods, just as reporters did for Reagan.

The facts? Aside from what everybody recognizes was the artificial jump in Dubya’s ratings after September 11, 2001, his public support has steadily declined.

Between his installation and the attacks, Bush’s approval figures were scattered but showed on average a drop from the high-fifties to low-sixties down to around fifty percent. (The Gallup poll, which has consistently been at the “high” end, recorded more than a ten-point fall between mid February and late August 2001.)

Then, since the attacks, Bush’s ratings have plummeted – again, very steadily – by somewhere between thirty-five and forty points. His latest ratings are just about as low as they were before 9/11....

Keller's own paper’s poll has recorded a drop of more than thirty points since September 2001, from 90% to 59% at the latest reading. Most other polls show a somewhat more dramatic drop, down to the 53% - 56% range.

“Held firm and high”? “Invincibility”? It's nearly as bad as Poppy's free-fall in 1991 -- and we're not done yet!

Yes, it’s déjà vu all over again – but for the media. The same kinds of disinformation floated now by the likes of Bill Keller and Howie “Mistah” Kurtz were commonplace when the press systematically ignored the facts and portrayed Ronald Reagan as uniformly popular despite his descent in the polls after 1982 and after 1987.

Reagan’s term has been dubbed the “Teflon presidency.” But even at the time – and more so since – it has been shown repeatedly that lazy, backwards bending (or knee-bending) reporters and pundits sprayed on the Teflon themselves – thereby helping to assure, among other things, Reagan’s huge re-election victory in 1984.

Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review way back in 1987, Michael Schudson and Elliot King demonstrated conclusively that reporters and pundits routinely claimed that Reagan was far more popular than he actually was.

Bill Keller’s flat-out erroneous article is the most prominent evidence to date that exactly the same thing is going on with Dubya.

But this time, we’re onto the game of bended knee.

Email a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times Magazine, pointing out Bill Keller’s flat-out errors, and how they destroy the entire premise of his article on George W. Bush.

Email Bill Keller to ask that he publicly correct his errors in his article on Bush. Also ask him why he eagerly takes the word of an ex-convict partisan like Michael Deaver -- and why he reports it to his readers without even noting Deaver's crimes in the service of Ronald Reagan....

[END]

-------------------------------------------

Here is what I would politely say in response to this Dem site: Face it: Dems will probably lose big in Election 2004. (And, you can't blame it all on the "media.")

I don't mean that in an evil tone either. I just think it will be a cold day in h*ll before any Dem site ever recognizes how much actual damage former President Clinton did to the entire Dem Party. More voters will be voting GOP for a long time to come. It doesn't mean these voters will agree with everything. But it's better than agreeing with nothing. Just my 2 cents.

[summer]

See my post #13.

[Mo1]

*L* .. thanks

[petuniasevan]

Oh, I haven't looked. I'm taking someone's word for it.

[summer]

BTW, I really meant to say this: More voters will NOT be voting Dem for a long time to come.

Because I don't know if I believe all the disaffected voters will go GOP. I happen to believe that 3rd parties will become stronger in the years to come, though "stronger" may not mean much in election results on a state or national scale. But, I think the Dem Party has wounds that are self-inflicted that they will never address. And, some voters will continue to be turned off for a long time, especially women.

[petuniasevan]

Both summer and The Great Satan have looked in on peewee's DU playhouse. Maybe they know which thread.

[summer]

I'll look it up tomorrow, as I really am about to fall asleep now... :)

[The Great Satan]