King of spin
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1055170,00.html
Jay Parini is enthralled by David Greenberg's study of the man behind
Watergate in Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image
Saturday October 4, 2003
The Guardian
Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image
by David Greenberg
460pp, WW Norton, £20.95
The age of spin began in earnest when Richard Nixon sat in a
television studio in New York on the evening of September 23, 1952,
explaining to the largest audience ever assembled to hear a political
speech that he was not a crook. It was discovered that the
vice-presidential candidate had at his disposal a substantial slush
fund. Nixon sniffed coolly and declared with shaking jowls that his
wife, Pat, didn't own a mink coat. "But she does have a respectable
cloth coat," he intoned. "And I always tell her that she'd look good
in anything." He also told his rapt audience that his little daughter,
Tricia, had been given a spaniel called Checkers, and "regardless of
what they say about it, we're gonna keep it".
If Americans could fall for that, they could fall for anything, which
is what Nixon discovered that night and taught future politicians, who
have shovelled millions into the pockets of "media consultants" ever
since. There is, indeed, a direct line from Nixon's Checkers speech
(as it's called) to George W Bush's now infamous landing on the deck
of an aircraft carrier last spring in a flight jacket to declare
victory in Iraq. He seemed to have parachuted out of heaven. It's all
about the image.
Richard Nixon
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