Comments on: Dumbing the Presidency

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:00:19 +0000

hmmm.... something about revealed preferences and individual choice....

Not sure where you're going in this context. What choices are we talking about?

By: steve

steve — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:42:51 +0000

At the risk of using one of this years overly used words, I think this dumbing down has removed nuance from the political debate. The war in Iraq is good or bad. No discussion of the incredibly complex history of the place. The convoluted politics. The problem I have then, is that it is unclear to me if these politicians know any of these details. Are they totally dependent on their advisers?

Steve

By: Hal

Hal — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:32:28 +0000

hmmm.... something about revealed preferences and individual choice....

already said that, though.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:46:28 +0000

BTW I think that television is to blame only indirectly. What's really to blame is the difference in how presidential speeches are written. Now they're written by committee, with predictable results.

But that's what they're going for—predictable results. So, just as McDonalds has done with food and Hollywood with movies, presidential speeches are bland and uninteresting. But they do have predictable results.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:23:59 +0000

Elitists, e.g. John Quincy Adams, have been making this same complaint since Andrew Jackson ran for president the first time and political parties were in their infancy. The reality is that we've elected intellectuals to the presidency just twice and each time they've been indifferent presidents.

Everything has been “dumbed down”: news coverage, newspaper writing. Why should presidential speechmaking be any different?