Customer Reviews

Press and the Modern Presidency: Myths and Mindsets from Kennedy to Clinton

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The image of the President of the United States is ubiquitous. His actions are carefully monitored at every moment in time. They are also reviewed and critiqued often in the press and then by the average citizen. Indeed, it is difficult to go through a week without hearing at least one item of news pertaining to the "Commentator-in-Chief." It is not surprising. As the most powerful person in the world many of his activities are automatically deemed newsworthy. The president represents the embodiment of the government to much of the polity and, in addition, he symbolizes the country to the world. It is a position of great power. Power to represent the people and powered often times by the people.

Being such a newsworthy figure, the president has also been the subject of considerable attention from the research community. His ability to perform his job effectively rests in the relations that he is able to build with the various publics with which he has regular interaction. The primary actors on this stage include Congress, the people, and the media, although certainly not always in this order.

Liebovich does an admirable job chronicling the relationship between the president and the press. Books by Rozell are more detailed concerning specific presidencies, but Liebovich's effort is a nice addition to the fold.

"The Press and the Modern Presidency" suggests that the relationship between these actors is dynamic and any attempt to gauge the impact of one on another does well to consider not only the personalities of the participants, but also the changing nature of the relation across time.

It's worth reading. Presidential scholars must have it on their bookshelves. That said, it seems as if Liebovich is not always sure what angle to take in describing the press-president relationship. He wrote about the Kennedy/Nixon debates (don't believe the hype, he concludes) on through to Chapter 11 on "Clinton's bad boy image" (If the media were crucifying Clinton, he and the first lady were providing the wood, the hammer, the nails, and the ladder"). But then in the final chapter he throws in aspects of the 1994 and 1996 elections. It's not a direction one would expect; afterall, it's a book on the victors, not a campaign/election studies book.

Liebovich concludes with several pieces of advice for potential office-seekers: "...he or she will have to have conducted an exemplarypersonal life before and during the term of office and be relatively free of financial irregularities in a world where money buys influence everywhere." I chose this selection, because the book was written just before the Lewinsky scandal broke and I wonder if the paperback epilogue will be altered slightly as a result? Add it to your shopping cart.