| AU experts comment on State of the Union address To get some perspective on last night’s State of the Union address, American Weekly asked faculty experts to comment on President Bush’s speech, the historic image of a female Speaker of the House standing behind him, and the resultant media coverage. School of Communication (SOC) professor emeritus Lewis Wolfson is a former Washington Bureau chief and the director of Dialogue with the Press, a program that unites journalists and experts to strengthen reporting. Q: Do you think the president was able to gain any political momentum with this speech?
A: It was not the best of nights for the president. His party has been riding high in Washington for six years and hit an iceberg in November. Americans have turned decisively against the war that is the set piece of his administration. Behind him was the woman who is suddenly stealing his political spotlight. And in front were half a dozen or more members of Congress who have little respect for his presidential legacy and will be telling us for the rest of his term that we need them in the White House to clean up the damage he has done. SOC executive in residence Dotty Lynch is the former senior political editor for CBS News and a former presidential pollster. Q: What was the political strategy behind this speech, and did it pay off?
A: Before the speech we heard a lot of talk about how the president was going to try to change the subject to domestic issues. And obviously by leading with domestic issues and taking up some traditionally Democratic issues, he was trying to reach out to Democrats the way Clinton reached out to Republicans in ’95 and ’96. But, in fact, I think it was the Iraq part of the speech that was really the most dramatic the most passionate. He got another opportunity to try to sell the idea. He didn’t use the word “surge.” He used the word “reinforcements,” and I think he did himself some good. At least the media polls showed that some of the people who watched were positively impressed. Q: Why do you think that strategy was effective?
A: In some ways people’s guard might have been down. Going into the last speech [on increasing troops in Iraq] everyone said, “He’s going to sell this surge; OK try to do it.” Instead this was in the context of a larger speech, and I think he might have gotten some benefit from making it such a forceful point and placing it where he did. It seemed like he was just going to try to bury it, but instead it became the dramatic moment of the speech. School of Public Affairs (SPA) professor Curtis Gans is the director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, which studies trends towards citizen disengagement from politics. Q: With the president facing very low approval ratings, do you think he did anything in the State of the Union to reach out to a distrustful and disengaged public?
A: I’ve seen one poll that said it was favorably received, but I think the problems underlying what this administration faces will make whatever favorable reaction there is a blip. The biggest problem that the president faces—and I think that problem is essentially terminal—is that people no longer trust him. SPA distinguished professor Karen O’Connor is the director of AU’s Women and Politics Institute and the coauthor of American Government: Continuity and Change, and Women, Politics and American Society. Q: What does Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) appearance behind the president throughout the address mean for women in politics?
A: For the first time in history, the American public was treated to the face of a woman—a shattering breaking of the glass ceiling in politics. In the weeks leading up to tonight, Speaker Pelosi has been portrayed as a caring wife, mother, and grandmother, not a San Francisco liberal as her challengers have tried to characterize her. Her presence on that podium changes the face of how women—especially young women and girls—now view the possibilities that are open to them. SOC professor Jane Hall has written extensively about the media and is a weekly panelist on Fox News Watch, Fox News Channel’s media-analysis program. Q: What’s your reaction to the media coverage of the State of the Union address so far?
A: Overall the coverage was very respectful to the president. Most of the anchors and the reporters were trying very hard to play it down the middle, in part I think because there’s been a lot of criticism from the right that the media somehow were invested in failure in Iraq. I only saw a couple of analysts say he’s a lame duck . . . At the same time the subtext was Nancy Pelosi and people running for president. If you looked, many of the reaction shots were—here’s Hillary Clinton listening, here’s John McCain listening. SOC professor Leonard Steinhorn is a former campaign and congressional speechwriter. His articles on politics and the media have appeared in salon.com, the Washington Post, and International Herald Tribune. Q: What can we learn from this speech about how the president’s political standing has changed?
A: What’s interesting is that when he spoke about Iraq his strategy has become that he wants to pry as many people away from their resistance as possible. I don’t think he or his administration realistically think they’re going to convince [their opponents] that this is the right strategy. Instead, what he would like at a minimum is to get people to give this a chance whether they agree with him or not. Now you have to think about how profoundly different that is from a couple of years ago when he was framing the debate and shaping the perceptions of voters. Now he’s pleading for a chance. And I think that contrast is profound. |
