Fill In The Blank
David Denby ends his New Yorker review of Frost/Nixon thus:
... I can’t escape the feeling that it carries about it an aura of momentousness that isn’t warranted by the events. [....] Frost and Reston did finally goad Nixon into saying that he let the American people down, and that he believed that “when the President does it, that means it’s not illegal,” [....] But it’s possible that both journalists and playwright have confused a media coup (and a less important one than that of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) with a cleansing act that forever chastened the Presidency. It was anything but that: after all, twenty-four years later, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney entered the White House.
So there it is. No need to explain that if the Presidency were "chastened," whatever that means, Bush and Cheney wouldn't have acted as they did. We New Yorker readers can cozily assume they did something horribly wrong, beyond merely disagreeing with our politics.
Denby's not a bad critic, but his politics have always been simplistic. I suppose if he wrote this review twenty years ago, he would have mentioned Reagan instead. Though somehow I don't think if he wrote it ten years ago he would have mentioned the only President in the last century to be impeached.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:08 AM
2 Comments:
I'm going to give this a try, however futile. It seems to me that the connection between Bush and Nixon is not simply a partisan dig. Post-Nixon, Cheney and others were very concerned at what they saw as a loss of presidential power that they felt was essential to the proper functioning of the presidency (especially as Commander-in-Chief). They developed the unitary executive theory, and did whatever they could during George W. Bush's presidency to implement it. This includes numerous efforts to exempt the President from the scope of the laws. Therefore, the critic's point that the Frost interview did not have a permanent effect seems correct.
Just because no one ever changes her mind on a blog doesn't mean the argument is futile. However, I think you're being too kind to Denby.
Essentially every President in our lifetimes has tried to increase the power of the office, and most of them (especially if they were Republicans since Nixon) got to hear plenty of pundits in the media use the catchphrase "the imperial Presidency."
It's true Dick Cheney felt the Presidency was weakened in the 70s and that this led to disasters (he felt this way long before 9/11), but he's hardly the only person to work for a President who wanted the balance of power to favor the executive more--indeed, it's hard to find many in that branch who don't feel this way (and aren't convinced the Constitution agrees with them). This battle has been going on for quite a while, and I really have no dog in the fight. I have, however, observed that many pundits' positions vary based on which party is in the White House.
Denby, even if I didn't already know his politics, isn't referring simply to Cheney and his concept of what the President should be. He simply hates Bush's policies and feels there's no excuse for them, whether or not they're part of what a President should normally decide. And he hates them so much, rather than recognize a political disagreement, he feels the Bush administration doesn't respect the law, and doesn't even care that they don't respect the law. Furthermore, he's so confident of this position, and his asburd (if predictable) analogy to Nixon, that he doesn't feel he has to argue the point. Remember, his cheap shot was the end of his review, not the beginning of a discussion.
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