consortiumnews.com--Will the Media Let Bush Lose?

[kaitykaity]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/091603.html

consortiumnews.com

Will the Media Let Bush Lose?
By Sam Parry
September 16, 2003

The U.S. news media may soon face a dilemma: Can pundits keep calling George W. Bush "the popular war-time president" – a favorite stock phrase – if his poll numbers sink much further? For two years, the phrase has been a media cliché for Bush often delivered with a pleasing smile from an agreeable talking head. Or it’s used like a club against some critic who is out of step with the American people.

ABC Evening News used the phase to describe Bush both when Howard Dean announced his Democratic candidacy in June and when John Kerry announced his in September. To a degree, the "popular war-time president" repetition has created a self-fulfilling reality, especially when reinforced by generally fawning news coverage, laudatory books like "The Right Man," an action-figure doll in a flight suit, and even a hero-worshipful Sept. 11 docu-drama (which put brave words into Bush’s mouth though he spent most of that awful day sitting frozen in a Florida classroom or fleeing to Louisiana and Nebraska).