COVER OF TIME: "SURE HE LOOKS LIKE A PRESIDENT...."
NICK: "No, he looks like a game show host."
The "he" in question being, of course, Mitt Romney. And hey, it's one man's opinion and I for one don't share it. Romney looks the way we all secretly think a president should look (except for Republicans who think he should look exactly like Ronald Reagan). "Who writes these things?" Nick wondered.
The above-referenced quote is at least nominally attributed to Karen Tumulty, that political correspondent who writes for Swampland. And knowing her work, I know she meant it tongue-and-cheek though there is a substantial danger that some people, Nick, won't get this. I like Karen Tumulty because I really like "Swampland" and of course I like Nancy Gibbs, who wrote "The Debate About [Romney's] Mormon Faith." Which is what the cover story is all about.
And of course, when I need just the news of the day for the day, I always turn to TIME. I don't mind that sometimes what they say gets a bit qualified later on as events unfold. I certainly would never hold this against anyone at TIME, including Nancy Gibbs. We live and we learn and we adjust our vision, and our rhetoric, accordingly. In short, we get the press we want and demand and therefore deserve.
So I say: Hey, don't shoot the messenger you chose yourself.
TIME reports today's news framed in today's culturally valid frame.
I don't fault them for it; I'm a subscriber, in fact. But you do
have to read TIME in context.
FOR EXAMPLE: Back in 2004, who knew that the portrait of "person of the year" for 2004 which emphasized his dogged but good-humored resistance to the naysayers and the skeptics and the nattering nabobs of negativism would later be so thoroughly reframed and revised? What follows is exactly as accurate now as it was then. Think about it.
Allow me to refresh your recollection:
For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year
And lest we forget, there was this sensitive and probing article:
[quote begins from "George Bush" by Nancy Gibbs and John F. Dickerson]
He's wearing a blue pinstripe suit, and his shoes are shined bright enough to shave in. He is loose, lively, framing a point with his hands or extending his arm with his fingers up as though he's throwing a big idea gently across the room....
"I've had a lot going on, so I haven't been in a very reflective mood," says the man who has just replaced half his Cabinet, dispatched 12,000 more troops into battle, arm wrestled lawmakers over an intelligence bill, held his third economic summit and begun to lay the second-term paving stones on which he will walk off into history....
The first TIME poll since the election has his approval rating at 49%. Gallup has it at 53%, which doesn't sound bad unless you consider that it's the lowest December rating for a re-elected President in Gallup's history. .... [I]t is not a surprise to a President who tends to measure his progress by the enemies he makes. "Sometimes you're defined by your critics," he says. "My presidency is one that has drawn some fire, whether it be at home or around the world. Unfortunately, if you're doing big things, most of the time you're never going to be around to see them [to fruition], whether it be cultural change or spreading democracy in parts of the world where people just don't believe it can happen. I understand that. I don't expect many short-term historians to write nice things about me."
[ends]
You have to admire the elegant and sprightly style and the way it gives you a real sense of how we saw the man himself before Katrina happened. As for the fact that the subject has been reframed so that exactly the same qualities noted above are now interpreted a little differently, that's certainly not the fault of anyone at TIME. The beauty of the quote is that it is 100% accurate. Remember the Seinfeld episode about Kramer's portrait? Remember when we all used to see Michael Richards through a lovable Kramer-based frame?
He's exactly the same guy, my friends. And so is W. If we don't like the picture now, blame it on our national insistence on presentation and on getting our information nicely framed to give us the effect we want.
And the article on Romney? Most informative.
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