Pundits and Presidents
Building off David’s great insight, why is it that when some Presidents do things that the public doesn’t support, such as sending more troops to Iraq in 2006, pundits laud the President for bold leadership, while when others do things the public doesn’t support, like extending health care to all Americans, pundits accuse the President of not listening to the people? How can we ex ante define when going against public opinion shows bold leadership versus not listening to the people? Similarly, what’s the difference between pandering and listening to the people?
2 Comments
Leave a comment
Sign up for our mailing list
Posts by Region
Posts by Topic
Recent Comments
Archives
- May 2012 (3)
- April 2012 (9)
- March 2012 (16)
- February 2012 (20)
- January 2012 (13)
- December 2011 (10)
- November 2011 (14)
- October 2011 (19)
- September 2011 (25)
- August 2011 (10)
- July 2011 (16)
- June 2011 (14)
- May 2011 (14)
- April 2011 (16)
- March 2011 (20)
- February 2011 (15)
- January 2011 (24)
- December 2010 (16)
- November 2010 (24)
- October 2010 (27)
- September 2010 (17)
- August 2010 (42)
- July 2010 (40)
- June 2010 (65)
- May 2010 (72)
- April 2010 (38)
- March 2010 (18)
- February 2010 (32)
- January 2010 (46)
- December 2009 (45)
- November 2009 (38)
- October 2009 (15)
- September 2009 (24)
- August 2009 (11)
- February 2009 (1)
Who we like
- AfPak Channel
- CIPE Blog
- Countries at the Crossroads
- Cyrus Samii
- Democracy Arsenal
- Democracy Dialogue
- Democracy Digest
- Democracy Resource Center
- EITI Blog
- ElectionGuide.org
- Fruits and Votes
- Global Voices Online
- One Blog
- Open Budgets Blog
- Open Democracy
- Policy and Power
- Progressive Realist
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Blogs
- Space for Transparency
- The Coming Prosperity
- The Democratic Piece
- The International Jurist
- The Kaufmann Governance Post
- United Nations Democracy Fund
- Zunia.org
Fine questions and I think they all speak to the issue of what we have come to consider news. In all I don’t think punditry would be detrimental to broader society were it not so often presented as information rather than opinion. As is I don’t think its actually important what the answers to some of your questions are, as much as why we need others to decide those answers for us, and just who selects these “deciders”. Regularly when I read on the glories of the free media I find myself wondering if its doing our society much good at the moment.
I don’t think media restrictions would solve the problem and I am not suggesting there is anything we should do about self-righteous pundits who sit in judgment without being accountable for implementing any policy. I raised the point to argue that self-appointed pundits who often lack any clear metric on which they render their judgments may not be very reliable judges.