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Generalisations about the Government
Apr. 1st, 2012 08:40 amSimon Hoggart in the Grauniad made an observation yesterday that was quite interesting.
To quote:
…once the media decide on the "narrative" about a government, it is as easy to shift as it is to turn an oil tanker through 180 degrees on a stormy sea. Journalists and broadcasters decided that the Major government was sleazy, then that Blair told terrible porkies, and are in the process of deciding that this lot are comically inept in every field, from kitchen suppers and emergency petrol storage to Cornish pasties. And once that happens, once the press decides that it's dealing with the gang that couldn't shoot straight, the perception is almost impossible to shift.
Note for USans and others: "Porkies" is rhyming slang for "lies", as in "porky pies=lies".
This is true in the US as well, but sometimes only in retrospect. Nixon, after his resignation, was seen as a liar, bigot, and sleazeball, and so was his entire administration. This glossed over some of his achievements, such as the rapproachment with China. Ford was seen as a stumblebum who had suffered too many knocks to the head while playing football. However, his achievement was to stabilise the country after the general disruption to life of the Watergate scandals.
Jimmy Carter was seen as an amiable Southern gentleman farmer who didn't quite get it. (Remember the "fireside chats" with him wearing a sweater rather than turning up the thermostat?) Reagan was the Nation's Grandfather who was so old he napped in the afternoons, talked a small government but drove up the national debt to record levels. Bush the First was a patrician who hated broccoli and had no idea what a supermarket scanner was—seriously out of touch with little people. Clinton was a hillbilly who couldn't keep his zipper closed, but presided over 8 years of surpluses and was a very shrewd lawyer. Bush the Second was so stupid that as the joke said when his library burned down he rued the fact that both colouring books were lost, and he hadn't even finished one of them. He reacted slowly to 9/11, and was the warmonger who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, thus bequeathing problems to his successor. We're still too close to Bush's time to see what the truth behind the generalisation was, and I wouldn't want to speculate on Obama's repute just yet. We're still in the middle of it.
To quote:
…once the media decide on the "narrative" about a government, it is as easy to shift as it is to turn an oil tanker through 180 degrees on a stormy sea. Journalists and broadcasters decided that the Major government was sleazy, then that Blair told terrible porkies, and are in the process of deciding that this lot are comically inept in every field, from kitchen suppers and emergency petrol storage to Cornish pasties. And once that happens, once the press decides that it's dealing with the gang that couldn't shoot straight, the perception is almost impossible to shift.
Note for USans and others: "Porkies" is rhyming slang for "lies", as in "porky pies=lies".
This is true in the US as well, but sometimes only in retrospect. Nixon, after his resignation, was seen as a liar, bigot, and sleazeball, and so was his entire administration. This glossed over some of his achievements, such as the rapproachment with China. Ford was seen as a stumblebum who had suffered too many knocks to the head while playing football. However, his achievement was to stabilise the country after the general disruption to life of the Watergate scandals.
Jimmy Carter was seen as an amiable Southern gentleman farmer who didn't quite get it. (Remember the "fireside chats" with him wearing a sweater rather than turning up the thermostat?) Reagan was the Nation's Grandfather who was so old he napped in the afternoons, talked a small government but drove up the national debt to record levels. Bush the First was a patrician who hated broccoli and had no idea what a supermarket scanner was—seriously out of touch with little people. Clinton was a hillbilly who couldn't keep his zipper closed, but presided over 8 years of surpluses and was a very shrewd lawyer. Bush the Second was so stupid that as the joke said when his library burned down he rued the fact that both colouring books were lost, and he hadn't even finished one of them. He reacted slowly to 9/11, and was the warmonger who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, thus bequeathing problems to his successor. We're still too close to Bush's time to see what the truth behind the generalisation was, and I wouldn't want to speculate on Obama's repute just yet. We're still in the middle of it.
