>
>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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