The Potemkin President
Among her legacies, Russian Empress Catherine the Great brought the term "Potemkin Village" into the vernacular. It refers to the elaborate villages erected by Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to impress Catherine with her new Crimean conquests. In today's political parlance, the term has become synonymous with the sophisticated facade and the clever ruse - that is, virtually any accomplishment or policy that "appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance."
Fast forward two hundred years after the death of Catherine the Great and meet George W. Bush, the Potemkin President. Through his mastery of techniques that would have made Potemkin himself proud, Bush has been able to advance unpopular policies, derail popular programs of the opposition, deflect deserved blame and appropriate undue credit. From rented reporters, purchased pundits, and rigged rallies to scripted sessions, fake news and pseudo-science, an unapologetic White House has sought to alter public perceptions to control political debate - and reality itself.
Bought and Paid For
In "The Message Machine", the New York Times detailed the range of strategies and tactics the Bush administration uses to ensure favorable press coverage. The easiest way to get good ink, of course, is just to buy it. Accordingly, the Department of Education paid conservative shill Armstrong Williams $240,000 to whore Bush's No Child Left Behind law. Maggie Gallagher collected from $41,500 from Tommy Thompson at HHS to push his marriage initiatives. The main drawback of paid-for-punditry is getting caught; President Bush may need to hire additional journalists to spin the GAO investigations now underway.
Even better than bribing writers is getting them to bend over backwards for free. Enter Jeff Gannon. The faux reporter from the virtual Talon News service fronting for very real GOP supporters provided President Bush and Scott McClellan a lifeline whenever they needed it. His articles were usually regurgitations of Republican talking points, often verbatim plagiarisms of White House press releases. Until this male prostitute turned journalist was outed, Gannon was the cheapest and most reliable mouthpiece George Bush ever had.
These "Propagate" revelations, though, are just a minor bump in the road for Karl Rove and the Bush media machine. Bigger and better allies are still in place. Fox News, known by many as GOPTV, remains a de facto appendage of the Republican Party. Among Fox's daily outrages are some truly spectacular acts of conservative favoritism, such as Sean Hannity on the stump for George Bush and the GOP during the 2004 election. The Washington Times, led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, also remains a reliable White House propaganda arm. And the legions of right-wing pundits from Lowry, Liddy and Limbaugh to Krauthammer, Kristol and Kondracke, (just to do the K's and L's) are still steadfast media storm troopers for the President.
Manufacturing Content
When the Potemkin President can't count on others to deliver his news, his team takes matters into its own hands. The fake video news release, an occasional device of the Clinton administration, has become a staple of President Bush. When concerned seniors balked at the Medicare prescription plan in early 2004, Tommy Thompson's Department of Health and Human Services turned to video news releases featuring ersatz reporters and jubilant beneficiaries. Television news programs across the country played the HHS clips featuring the fictional reporter "Karen Ryan" unedited and without reference to their source.
Using taxpayer funds for political propaganda is, of course, illegal. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded exactly that in the case of the Medicare VNRs, stating "the entire story package was developed with appropriated funds but appears to be an independent news story." President Bush would have none of it:
There is a Justice Department opinion that says these -- these pieces are within the law, so long as they're based upon facts, not advocacy. And I expect our agencies to adhere to that ruling, to that Justice Department opinion.
Control Freaks
George Bush's communications team supplements these "make versus buy" news creation decisions with unprecedented control over every aspect of press and public interaction with the President. With events scripted, questioners preselected, and access controlled, nothing is left the chance.
This unique combination of cowardice and control takes many forms. President Bush has had the fewest number of press conferences of any modern president. Even then, the reporters and their questions are often chosen and scripted in advance, sometimes with comical results. But Bush being Bush, some performances are out of Rove's hands, like the April 13, 2004 classic, "I'm sure something will pop into my head here...maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."
Campaign events, town hall meetings and other public Bush appearances are exquisitely staged to remove any margin for error. Only the GOP faithful are allowed, with invitations provided in advance. Potential opponents are barred and sometimes intimidated. Even still, Bush's verbal incontinence ensures a steady flow of memorable moments, like this one from his January 12, 2005 Social Security town hall meeting with African-Americans:
"Another interesting idea...is a personal savings account...which can't be used to bet on the lottery, or a dice game, or the track."
When all else fails with the press, the Bush team will fall back on the Payback Principle. Write something bad and you might get blacklisted, or worse. Betray Bush by speaking the truth, like Joseph Wilson, Jim Jeffords, Paul O'Neill, Richard Foster, or John Dilulio, and there will be hell to pay.
Just Say Nyet
The Bush team's fondness for the best media practices of Russia and the Soviet Union does not end with Potemkin. By turning bad science, rigged data and faux findings into tools of communications strategy, President Bush has brought 21st century Lysenkoism to the White House. (For more on this theme, see Wired, The Washington Monthly, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.)
In much the same way Lysenko claimed his pseudo-science would revolutionize Stalin-era Soviet agriculture, the Bush team explains away the need for action in areas from global warming to AIDS. The White House claims that the absence of a scientific consensus on global warming is the basis for rejecting the Kyoto Protocols, this is at the same time that a Pentagon study warns of dire climatic change. Despite extensive research demonstrating the abysmal failure of teen abstinence programs, the administration continues to fund them at the expense of other birth control and family planning approaches. Worse still, the flawed information and blatant lies offered by some of these often faith-based programs, goes forward without correction or condemnation. (Famously, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was called to task by ABC's George Stephanopolous for government support of a program claiming that HIV/AIDS could be transmitted by tears and sweat.) The list just goes on and on: bogus claims regarding the uses of current stem cell lines, publicizing a false link of abortion to cancer, manipulating the process for awarding federal research grants, just to name a few.
Taken together, these approaches allow President Bush to create a an elaborate facade of gravitas and popularity, all buttressed by dubious data and moral passion plays. As one White House aide put it to Ron Suskind last year:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Which brings us back to Catherine the Great. An enlightened despot, she believed in the scientific method and at least the appearance of press freedom. 200 years later, George W. Bush can't even maintain that facade.
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