Glimpses of a Leader, Through Chosen Eyes Only
This administration, in times of crisis, has really put out its own image from its own employees. I don't know that any one of these handouts is a grand fabrication or a distortion of what's going on, but we're only getting one voice.
- Chuck Kennedy
Every recent President has attempted to control the image that is presented to the American public. That is hardly news, nor is it a novel concept. No President, though, has taken control of his image, and the secrecy that accompies such control, to the level that Shrub has.
But photographers, picture editors and even administration officials say that no other administration has moved as forcefully as the Bush White House to limit the access of outside news photographers to the president. There are two reasons, they say: the administration's desire for secrecy, and new technology, like the ability to send digital photos by e-mail, that makes immediate dissemination of images possible....
Generally, the official pictures of Mr. Bush follow the White House's narrative line of a manly, resolute leader, like the photograph of the president clearing brush at his Texas ranch wearing a cowboy hat. Others portray him as deeply engaged in his duties, like one widely used photograph of Mr. Bush in an intense meeting in the Oval Office the morning after the United States opened the war against Iraq.
"Obviously, we're looking for something where the president looks good," said Mr. Draper, 38, a former photographer for The Associated Press who was assigned to Mr. Bush's presidential campaign and who got his job at the White House when he simply asked the president-elect if he could have it.
Picture editors say the problem with limited access to the president is that while the White House photographs are technically excellent and capture important moments of history, they are the administration's version of events, not journalism.
In an Administration where secrecy is so highly valued, and spin is a fine art, I suppose it is understandable that Shrub would want himself portrayed as a resolute, manly man. Shrub supporters out there will no doubt insist that what the President is doing is no different from what other Chief Executives have done. I would submit that it IS different, though perhaps only in degree, in that the control is so thorough and complete that it has passed into the realm of intellectual dishonesty. Then again, if you knew that you had stolen an election AND are being accused of having lied in order to involve America in a costly war, you'd be heavily involved in image control as well.
