Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush

by Elvin T. Lim

Book Overview

In The Anti-Intellectual Presidency, Elvin Lim draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents' ability to communicate with the public. Lim argues that the ever-increasing pressure for presidents to manage public opinion and perception has created a "pathology of vacuous rhetoric and imagery" where gesture and appearance matter more...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019989809X
• ISBN13: 9780199898091
• Release Date: January 2012
• Publisher: OUP Us
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Very informative and worth your time!

I actually had the honor of being in Professor Lim's class at the University of Tulsa while he was still writing this book. He does an amazing job of pulling every argument together in a way that thoroughly explains what is going on in the political world today. Where before I read this book I knew little to nothing about politics, I was able to watch the elections in November and identify certain characteristics of each candidate that Lim explains in his book. It is a slightly difficult read to those who are not politically minded, but definitely worth your time. This book is an excellent investment.

Lim provides the proof

This book offers compelling proof that presidents have dumbed down their public speech in the last two centuries. It is one of the very few political books I've read that is not at all partisan - Lim places equal blame on Clinton as he does on Bush. Lim nevertheless makes it clear that because presidents now tell us what we want to hear rather than what we need to hear, we are headed for trouble. Lim offers a fascinating account of how the very people who write presidential speeches also call these speeches "rose garden garbage." I especially enjoyed the chapter on speechwriters, all of whom - Republican or Democratic - complain about the fact that, as Peggy Noonan says, America's only "unstimulated organ (is) the brain." If even speechwriters complain of dumbing down, then Houston, we got a problem. Lim does a good job of defending his case against the accusation of elitism, reminding us that when presidents dumb down, they are the ones who are being cynical. The American people deserve, and can handle better, he argues. Lim offers a particularly poignant account of President Bush's speeches on Iraq in the early months of the war, and argues that the country would have been better served if the president had been pushed to specify and demonstrate the evidence that Saddam Hussein had indeed possessed weapons of mass destruction. Instead, we allowed the president to talk us into war with such rousing, but meaningless catch-phrases as the "axis of evil." Thinking back on those years, Lim's explanation for how we were persuaded to go to war rings more true than any account I have read. A short book that packs a lot of punch, this is a no-holds barred book on the dangers of a White House perpetually concerned with public relations. While the statistical analysis can be dry at times, Lim's wry, engaging prose (which reminds me of Christopher Hitchen's style) more than makes up for it.