Peeling Back the Wizzard of Oz's Curtain

Television is not known for subtlety. However, CNN has quietly begun to peel back the curtain from the current Wizard of Oz, also known as the President of the United States. Though it is well known in political circles that president's staffs regularly dictate how every public moment is to be staged and impose a language that all presidential subordinates must use (not unlike the commie-speak of the Soviet Union), I wonder how much about this the American public knows.

About three weeks ago, CNN has broadcast a story about how Laura Bush's events are staged to the point where every action and word are set up in advance - particularly for events that are supposed to look natural as when Laura travelled to Africa to bring attention to the AIDS crisis. Of course she didn't just show up in a truck that regularly passed out food to starving Africans. For security reasons, some of the staging can be forgiven. But there is much more. Typically, the press is told in advance exactly where the public official will stand (complete with marks on the ground for actor and cameras), what she will do/say and how long it will take. Normally, the press doesn't report on this. Rather they simply broadcast the images. This time, CNN took a hand held camera to the "advance" (the "advance team" sets up events in advance - and many of them have B.A.s in communication) and filmed the advance-woman indicating what would happen. And low-and-behold, it happened. Ah, truth. But of course, the story has now disappeared from CNN's webpage. The story wasn't good for the president, and was not good for CNN.

Last night, CNN broadcast a brief clip from a response that Richard Carmona, the former surgeon general, provided to the House Government Oversight committee (the transcript of the Q & A has not yet been posted to the web). Carmona revealed that political appointees of the Bush administration required him to use Bush's name at least three times per page in all speeches. Those of us who have worked in Washington are familiar with this kind of requirement - repeating a person's name has a powerful effect on audiences. But I wonder what other kinds of rules this administration's officials must abide by when they speak. Must they use the phrase "democrat party" rather than "democratic party?" We know from Jon Stewart that they are remarkably good at staying on message, but just how detailed are those messages?

Mostly, I wonder just how much Americans realize the rules of staging and speaking in Washington, DC. I don't wonder why the main stream media does not report on this more often - this kind of knowledge would turn Americans off to news that is not.