Presidential Propaganda Power
The influence of Presidential propaganda power has been strong in the Bush White house.
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda. ” — George W. Bush, President of the United States, in a speech made on May 24, 2005.
George W. Bush may have made the above statement in reference to Social Security issues but it is a tried and true tactic that he has used time and time again in his Presidency. One of the most glaring examples is George Bush’s often repeated lines that tie the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center directly to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. There is simply no evidence to support this statement but since so many Americans have heard it so often from their President they believe it to be true.
Another often repeated lie told by Bush to the American people that many believe to be true is that the terrorists hate Americans because we enjoy freedom and democracy. Middle Eastern policy experts will take quick issue with that statement. It seems to them and to me that America’s clumsy and uneven implementation of foreign policy and our constant interference in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern nations has a lot more to do with the terrorists hated of America.
In the run up to the Iraq war Bush used the constant repetition of “facts” by himself and his team members, like Cheney, Rice, Rumsfield, and Powell, to ramp up the public’s acceptance and willingness to invade Iraq to his advantage. At the end of the propaganda campaign the majority of Americans were frightened enough to believe that Iraq posed a clear and present danger to the United States.
Bush may not be the sharpest tool in the box but he is a shrewd and talented politician. From the President’s bully pulpit he has been effective in promoting his administration’s propaganda. Whatever the truth may actually be hasn’t seemed to matter. President Bush knows that the repetition of the same statements over and over by a leader can for a lot of followers convert absolute nonsense into the truth as they now want to see it.
