it's all image, citizens!

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Jan 21 07:39:50 PST 2001


R.W. "Johnny" Apple explains the performative theory of presidential authority on the front page of the New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/21/politics/21ASSE.html>:


>Arguments about the legitimacy of the Texas governor's victory have
>persisted even as the country accepted the fact that he had won.
>Thousands of the doubtful and disenchanted took to the streets of
>Washington today in angry protest.
>
>But the debate is likely to grow softer as the nation grows
>accustomed to pictures of Mr. Bush speaking from the Oval Office,
>boarding Air Force One, accompanied everywhere he goes by the
>strains of "Ruffles and Flourishes" and "Hail to the Chief." In the
>television age, those images, more than anything else, confer the
>mantle of authority and legitimacy on a leader.



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