All the President’s Spin : George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth

I’m doing a lot of travelling for the next few months. I wont be posting as much, but since I’m reading more I’ll let you know what I think of the books I’m reading. First up - “All the President’s Spin : George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth” written by the non-partisan folks at Spinsanity.org. The site has an RSS Feed here . The book is fantastic and I look forward to getting news from the website. Here’s the Amazon.com editorial review:

It’s no shock that an American president would employ skilled PR pros to carefully hone a message that makes the administration’s objectives more palatable to the general public. It’s a tradition that dates back decades. But it’s another matter entirely to base an entire presidency on the bending, twisting, and distorting of the truth.

According to authors Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan, the George W. Bush administration tiptoes around the definition of lying but still uses ambiguous language, selective use of facts, and shaky evidence to sell the American people on issues like the effect of tax cuts, the impact of a business-friendly environmental policy, and the reasons for going to war in Iraq. While the authors have plenty of blame to place on the administration, the news media are also fingered for parroting administration spin and reporting it, without verification or context, as objective fact. Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan, founders of the political analysis web site Spinsanity, detail how Bush and company, more than any administration in history, cherry pick information that they find helpful, regardless of how representative it is of the overall truth, and then package it with a forceful and persistent presentation that eventually takes on the patina of reality. Democrats will also find that 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry appears very much up to playing the political game on Bush’s terms as the authors dissect and deflate plenty of misleading primary season anti-Bush charges made by the Democratic nominee.

All The President’s Spin is richly detailed, not surprising given the sound bite-free task of picking apart political spin, and while it is intensely critical of Bush’s messaging, it does not pass judgment on the wisdom or efficacies of the policies themselves. Any politician could take a lesson from the authors’ clarity and comprehensive scope. Read more at Amazon.com and Buy it Now!
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