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June 20, 2013
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 Playing PresidentPosted on Apr 11, 2006
(Page 2) Introductionby Robert Scheer Playing president is not a book title selected casually, but a distilled opinion gleaned over forty years of journalism, covering our most important democratic exercise. After decades spent interviewing dozens of leading presidential candidates, including those who ended up in the highest office, I came to the conclusion that the process endured in obtaining electoral power tends to be the controlling influence on the candidate’s behavior once in office. As sailors like to say, the journey is the destination, and for politicians with presidential aspirations, the experience of running for one office after another until they obtain the final prize informs as well as deforms their conduct. The problem is that in our system, as opposed to a parliamentary one, the presidential candidate’s performance is a solo act. The basic test is not that of a leader emerging from a pack made up of peers; instead, it revolves around a performer and a largely untutored electorate that is his jury and his audience. Whereas a parliamentary leader is pushed by the process of selection to grow in ways that are positive to governance, with policy substance stressed over rhetorical style, in the American presidential system, the electoral process stupefies rather than educates, undermining—indeed, assaulting—the capacity of the politician to consider public policy in ways that are truly thoughtful. In the uniquely grueling and essentially mindless process of our system, serious issues become little more than grist for the pollsters’ mills, and substantive alternatives are reduced to slogans to be bandied about for electoral convenience and television sound-bite advertising. Advertisement All of the leading presidential candidates that I have interviewed, from Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado to Republican Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, have been honorable individuals who sacrificed a great deal in their attempts to succeed at what is an extremely challenging ordeal. Whether it was John Anderson, the Republican Congressman-turned-Independent, or civil rights activist Jessie Jackson turned perennial Democratic Party candidate, these men for the most part struck me as basically well-intentioned in their eagerness to serve the nation. The fundamental hazards are in the process itself: that numbing effect of a modern mass media-observed campaign that requires such an incredible high-wire act—balancing fundraising with integrity, superficial sloganeering with profound commitment, and homogenizing the entire unwieldy package into a marketable commodity—that in the end, the candidate is transformed into a caricature who has difficulty remembering from whence he came. That, of course, is the opposite of what the founders of the American system had in mind when they rooted our representative democracy in accountability, with even the smallest local village subject to the scrutiny of a media that was everyman, as personified by the proprietor of the penny press and the town crier. Thomas Jefferson extolled the central importance of the media, declaring, “I would rather have free press and no government, than a government and no free press.” Journalists were by no means presumed virtuous; they were often considered vile, intemperate, and cursory in their observations. Yet what defined the media in the infancy of the nation was variety, made possible by a press that thrived in conditions of undercapitalization. Famed media critic A.J. Liebling once wrote, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one,” and in the time of Jefferson, that group included much of the electorate. Today, the opposite is obviously the case, with media ownership enormously costly and concentrated in a very few centers of capital. Perhaps the Internet will change that; already there are signs that the blogosphere, when it is not merely mischievous noise, is revitalizing the democratic process. After all, money is often less important than spunk as the key ingredient to the success of a website. But the contrary tendency in the period of time during which I interviewed the presidential candidates in this book was increasingly toward larger and more suffocating media conglomeration. For this reason, there is something anachronistic about the interviews I conducted, as they were produced for print outlets even while the electronic media was beginning to fully assert its dominance. It is now extremely rare for a print journalist, accompanied only by pen and paper and a tape recorder, to be granted adequate time to assess a candidate’s ability to reflect on the issues of the day. In the introductions to each of the following sections, I attempt to provide some insight into how my exchanges with the men who served as President came to take place, and what was learned in the process. In the last section on President George W. Bush, I struggle to come to grips with the one recent President who was never subjected to such a test, from me or anyone else. While I did spend some time around him and the rest of the Bush family entourage while reporting on his father’s campaigns, he is the one President here who I never interviewed on the public record. No matter, George W. Bush is, for better or worse, the first truly electronically projected President. Robert Scheer
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By Gregory A. Wood, April 26, 2006 at 8:23 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Election reform would be something serious when the intent of the Founding Fathers toward free speech is extended toward all media; All manner of distortion and exploitation center around such neglect. Now we can have lies prevail as just another version of media truth and no one is accountable. If Constitutional values are not elevated to the level of public pride then we will never know what the aim toward democratic culture can accomplish and we will barely know to miss it when it disappears.
Report thisBy cognitorex@gmail.com, April 23, 2006 at 5:19 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The sobriquet, “West Texas Oil Man” is more often than not a euphemism for liar. It is a culture and a culturally learned skill set. I do hope Mr. Scheer has some understanding of this.
If the Congress had understood this mentality they would never have voted to give W’ carte blanche or an open contract vis a vis Iraq..
The Texas/oilpatch oil man/promoter is an archetype/euphemism. He sells by inference and near lies.
If one promoter said to another promoter, “I’m honest, my word is my bond” it’s possible they both might crack up with laughter. The honesty gig is for rubes and neophytes.
Many circle the GB honesty conundrum. Al Gore’s rendition of GB, i.e. “a man who by inferences, distortions and exaggeration” sells what is not true is accurate and archetypical.
(caj 7.2.04)
_____________________________________________
“TOKYO AND TEXAS”
Report thisI recently went to Tokyo,
gosh, they all speak Japanese!
In Rome, in church, guess?
people praying on their knees.
In West Texas, oil men, so friendly,
saying, “I’m honest” with a drawl.
and, “Shucks son, I’m so sorry,
it didn’t work out for y’all.”
June 20, 2004)
by CAJ
___________________________________________
By Joe Citizen, April 22, 2006 at 6:48 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I am convinced one reason ‘W.’ is not very popular is that the public has caught on to just how much he in particular is just playing president. (“I am the decider,” he felt the need to declare.)
We have the presidential system we have because the public apparently has been comfortable enough with the idea that real power lies elsewhere, in the private sector. Our system must reflect, in some degree, the faith Americans have had in Corporate America.
The Democrats, more the party of government than the GOP, have had to work harder to establish their credentials with the public. I think this is why a number of current Democratic governors first served their states as attorney general.
Therefore, one reform comes to mind that might benefit the quality of our presidential leadership. I would ask the parties to consider A) doing away with one-term only governorships, and B) extending terms beyond two years where they are so limited.
Report thisBy Maurice Diepeveen, April 16, 2006 at 6:59 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The reason G.W Bush could be elected (?) and subsequently be re-elected is in my opinion caused by a lack of information / education of the American population. Partially due to limited and/or biased media reporting, partially due to lack of general education, which is not the learning of the 3 R’s, but the learning of “learning”. And that may be based on the school system as a whole, as well as the old fashioned and worthless concept of “self-made men”, learning of the school of hard-knocks, etc.
Report thisThe educational system could have made a difference if it was geared to teaching the young people to learn to think, to question and to reason.
That is how G.W.Bush was elected and re-elected.
By Robert Crawfis, April 13, 2006 at 4:36 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
How did our country elect, and then re-elect, George W. Bush? Here is a poll result I saw recently that might help explain this disaster:
Report this52% of Americans do not believe in evolution, and instead accept creationism or intelligent design. 86 years after the Scopes evolution trial and the anti-science side is winning in this country. What other Western country would get such a poll result? Karl Rove and the Republican party want American to remain ignorant, because it’s how they win elections.
By felicity smith, April 13, 2006 at 11:32 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
#6950 I agree that our presidential system NEEDS some kind of reform, an opinion that is gaining some allegiance here in the States. Most particularly the regime of Bush has changed our political landscape to the point where we’d better do it sooner rather than later. Point of fact, presidentialism has fallen into authoritarianism in every country it has been attempted except the U.S. The way things are going our exception is fast becoming a thing of the past.
Report thisBy Earl Prignitz, April 13, 2006 at 6:50 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Too bad Sheer and Vidal’s ideas don’t get wider coverage.
Report thisBy Jason_w, April 12, 2006 at 11:29 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
A book by Robert Scheer with a forward by Gore Vidal? There’s *no* political bias here <cough!>.
Report thisBy Salamander, April 12, 2006 at 11:29 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
In the end, our problem is “us”. It’s a “we” thing, not a “they” thing. If we all had to choose a year of public service at age 18, it might help to weaken the strong polarities and rigid mindsets that limit our individual and collective character, personality and intellect.
Report thisBy Roger Drowne EC, April 12, 2006 at 11:02 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
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Report thisBy M Henri Day, April 12, 2006 at 10:59 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
From the outside, at least, the system seems to be hurtling to its own demise, not least due to the ideological fundamentalism of the circles closest to Mr Bush. He may well become remembered - in the event anyone survives to remember it - as the man who brought the temple crashing around not only his head, which would be poetic justice, but also around those of the peoples of the whole globe. But if, which is doubtful, it is possible to postpone the Götterdämmerung, then at least two things will have to be done in the US, and that soon :
1) Prohibit political TV ads
2) Institute proportional representation for legislative offices, and run-offs until a candidate receives 50 % of the votes cast for executive offices….
Maybe, just maybe, the end of the world as we know it will then come with a whimper instead of a bang….
Report thisBy Tim Rawlins, April 12, 2006 at 4:22 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Profound stuff.
Doesn’t the analysis lead to the conclusion that the US presidential system actually NEEDS some kind of reform?
As an outsider (Australian) it seems to me the US public culture is hopelessly corrupt. Not just the emphasis on the one man actor at the head, but the whole realm of business lobbyists, corporate controlled legislature, elections that are not only bought by the biggest personal war chest, but even corrupted judges, machines that cheat for one party because they are operated by one party and about a billion other things that are incredibly venal.
From what an outsider can gather from a distance and the present administration and moment in time especially.
The whole political architecture, the whole social structure and much of personal morality in the states needs some kind of hard scrub down and re-invention!
May some kind of common sense please prevail?
I think you might start to stop kidding yourselves about the self-deceptions, about American virtues. Acknowledge and deal with the facts of the past, as well as other strange uncivilised remnants like the madness about owning guns.
Australia also has similar shadows and a similar evolution required.
Thus I am not bashing the states in particular but reflecting that we in the modern “west” have a road to the future that we need to find by truly understanding our present.
TR
Report thisBy Vet, April 12, 2006 at 1:54 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Bush is a Kakistocratic nightmare, a curse upon America, from which Scheer and Vidal expose so well.
Report this