-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- US Politics Media Spin on the Masks of Gore by Mark Steyn "Well, Dan, Bush may have overplayed his hand. By being in command of the facts, talking in coherent sentences and winning the debate, he risks reminding voters of what they dislike about Al Gore." "That's right, Bob. Conversely, if Gore can build on this week's performance by appearing even more tentative, uncomfortable and anxious for the debate to end, he may tap in to that group of key swing voters who were attracted to Bush when he was a bozo." "That's right, Sam. By flaunting his knowledge of 'East Timor' and 'Viktor Chernomyrdin' and by using phrases like 'the National Restaurant Association's policy of cross-jurisdictional pooling', Bush may have alienated his base of morons." "That's right, Eleanor. Because we know that on the issues Gore is more in tune with the electorate. He's said that education would be his 'number one priority', as would campaign-finance reform and Medicare. By having so many 'number one priorities' and no 'number two' or 'number three priorities', he's much closer to where the electorate is, priority-wise." "That's right, Wolf. And Bush now has a serious character problem. By abandoning his decision to campaign as a dimwit and relaunching himself as a tough, confident, informed candidate, he runs the danger of seeming uncertain as to who he really is. That won't play well with a public likely to react cynically to a candidate who relaunches himself with a new image every week." "That's right, Cokie. And, by making us political experts tie ourselves in knots all the time, Bush consistently makes our headaches worse, which only reminds us how much we need Gore's plan for lower prescription-drug prices." There was universal agreement on one point. Gore was wise to ditch the pantomime-dame make-up from the first debate. But, even here, he couldn't help going to extremes, appearing without his face on not just in the foundation-and-rouge sense, but in a more profound way: the mouth wasn't merely in non-sighing mode, it was zipped up and hung slack; the eyes seemed dead. The only remnants of last week's Gore were the eyebrows (nice pencil liner) imperiously arched with the amused contempt of an overthrown king sitting through his own show trial. On Wednesday night, the Vice-President had the look of a man who'd run out of masks. After the expansive array of dazzling new Gores of the last year - farmer Al, earth-tone Al, attack-dog Al, self-deprecating Al, hot-lips Al - the Vice-President apparently opened his closet and found that his housekeeper had sent all his identities to the cleaners. Dubya, for his part, connected the dots between personal character and public policy in a subtle but devastating way. When he spoke of an America that was "humble, but strong" as opposed to one that was "arrogant" and thought it could be "all things to all people", he wasn't really talking about the nation per se so much as its embodiment in the Commander-in-Chief. Al's sneering disdain for Dubya in the first debate isn't just personal disdain but emblematic of his arrogance in government: we'll give you tax credits - but only if you live your life the way we say, from cradle to grave, from pre-school child-care to seniors' health plans. And just because we're running your lives doesn't mean we won't be running the rest of the world, too. Al made the astonishing assertion that the rest of the world wants to be "more like us". Many people around the world admire the United States, but are proudly Slovene, Kazakh, even British, and wish to build their countries their way. When Dubya talked about a humble but strong America, he sounded like he was talking about himself. When Al talked about a uniquely powerful America imposing its values on everyone else, he was talking about himself, too. At one point, Dubya alluded to "the Ugly American" - an old stereotype but one which, over on the other side of the split screen, seemed to have found its most alarming apotheosis. Meanwhile, Dubya's view of the media establishment as "major-league assholes" is pretty sound. All the experts agreed Gore won the first debate, while Bush had at best survived. So when, in the ensuing days, the polls showed Dubya in the lead, the Gore team's brilliant response was to mock the guy's syntax and claim he was too bumbling to be President. Who are the real dummies here? If politics is an expectations game, the last thing Gore needed to do was lower the public's expectations of Dubya even more. The baffled media now speculate that Bush deliberately threw the first debate to lower expectations for the second. The truth may be that he's just the first candidate of the 21st century indifferent to spin and image manipulation. Hey, what I am saying? That's ridiculous, right? The London Telegraph, Friday, October 13, 2000 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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