BUSH-KERRY DEBATES: SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS

JKU

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Thursday June 17, 2004 · 10:19 PM PDT

2004/06/17 · 22:19

The press and Kerry can't let Bush get away with playing the low expectations game in this year's debate. Kerry's team has to come out early and often, getting public anticipation built up for the "Statesman" Bush has become in the past years as "President." According to a source quoted in the ATLANTIC, the whole John Wayne act is bullshit anyways:

"...Yolette Garcia, who as the executive producer at KERA-TV, in Dallas, had supervised negotiations for the Bush-Richards debate, says that in those days Bush was noted for his poise and ease in public appearances--including the informal Q&As he has tried to avoid as President. "You never saw him in an awkward situation as governor," she told me. "You expected he'd know the right thing to say."

Obviously, Bush doesn't sound this way as President, and there is no one conclusive explanation for the change. I have read and listened to speculations that there must be some organic basis for the President's peculiar mode of speech--a learning disability, a reading problem, dyslexia or some other disorder that makes him so uncomfortable when speaking off the cuff. The main problem with these theories is that through his forties Bush was perfectly articulate. George Lakoff tried to convince me that the change was intentional. As a way of showing deep-down NASCAR-type manliness, according to Lakoff, Bush has deliberately made himself sound as clipped and tough as John Wayne. Moreover, in Lakoff's view, the authenticity of this stance depends on Bush's consistency in presenting it. So even if he is still capable of speaking with easy eloquence, he can't afford to let the mask slip."

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/07/press-preview/fallows.htm

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