By Mark Crispin Miller
W.W. Norton & Company
Reviewer=Steven Melling
Since the election reforms of the 1970s, the media have assumed an ever-increasing role in the election of the president. In “The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder,” author Mark Crispin Miller examines the relationship between the current president, George W. Bush, and the media.
The title might suggest this to be a partisan joke book, like Slate’s Bushisms, but that’s not the case. Crispin Miller points out that assembling another such book “would have been an easy job”, but “the situation that we’re in today is really not so funny”.
Being a professor of media ecology at NYU, Miller’s focus is on the difference between the real Bush and the lovable dumb guy we see on the news. While maintaining that Bush has some serious communication problems, Miller also deems him “extraordinarily shrewd.”
Conservatives often refer to Bush as the second coming of Reagan. This book says, yeah right … more like the second coming of Nixon. Indeed the two are somewhat analagous. Bush’s main strategist, Karl Rove, cut his teeth doing “dirty tricks” for Nixon. And Bush has also been prone to nasty behavior . The most exposed example of Bush’s mean side was when he called a reporter an “asshole” near what he thought was a cold microphone. For more examples, Miller goes back to Bush’s involvement in his father’s 1988 presidential campaign.
Through long transcript excerpts, Miller makes sure his Bush quotes will not be perceived as out of context. Readers will see repeated instances where Bush avoids heavy questions (health care, abortion, etc.). Instead, he fumbles around until television viewers probably forgot what the question was. At this point, Bush usually blurts out one of his ready-made soundbytes, such as “I’m a uniter, not a divider.”
The Dyslexicon is far from being a pure diatribe against Bush. Miller condemns the media culture, particularly television, which helped Bush land this plum job. In an excerpt of ABC news analysis following a presidential debate, George Stephanoupolus is shown fighting to point out that Bush had dodged a question about the patients’ bill of rights (Dingell-Norwood). Cokie Roberts quickly tells Stephanopoulos that’s simply not important.
Following the excerpt, Miller opines: “Stephanopoulos’s colleagues couldn’t possibly relate to Dingell-Norwood since they’re far too wealthy to concern themselves with HMOs and therefore wouldn’t ever need to sue one.” It is interesting that millionaires are deciding what’s important to the general population.
Throughout the book Miller makes several similar points, effectively deconstructing the myth of the liberal media. He reminds us that the media are out to make money, by selling ads, not to solve social inequities.
Being written and released before Sept. 11, the Dyslexicon contains these particularly prescient words: “it suits a politician to have everyone thinking he’s a dunce, especially if he wants to do things his way.”
The major flaw of the Dyslexicon, is that it’s heavy on information, but does not include an index of the myriad references. Hopefully the paperback edition will rectify this problem.
For anyone who still can’t figure out how Bush became number 43, the Dyslexicon should shed some light.