Former President George H.W. Bush had it a lot better than President Trump. Economic growth was humming at 5%, his polling was high, and he was on duty in the Oval Office when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union crumbled.
But the press attacked him and as he headed to defeat to Bill Clinton, Bush became the first president to publicly rip on the media at campaign events, even handing out red hats that with the words “Annoy the Media Re-Elect Bush” on them.
Unlike Trump’s broad criticism of the White House press corps, Bush had a different focus. “My ire goes to those talking heads on those Sunday television shows,” he said at one of his last campaign rallies.
In St. Louis Bush said said, “The guys with the cameras and the long boom mikes and carrying the burden out there, they’re good guys. The traveling press with us, exempt them from the anger. But if you want to know who I really feel strongly about, it’s those Republican consultants and those Democratic consultants on those deadly Sunday talk shows saying I don’t have a chance. We are going to show them wrong. We’re going to prove them wrong. Annoy the media.”
Bush campaign strategist Mary Matalin recalled that Bush was reacting to crowd anger, not stirring it up. “As I recall, the public came up with the sentiment and signs and we ran with it,” she said.
“We were certainly aware of the bias going back to 1988,” she said, noting Time’s “Wimp” cover, as an example. “1992 was replete with more egregious examples relative to Bush bashing — and fabricating — but the big difference was the double standard for Bill Clinton. I don’t mean in the slobbering adoration devotion they paid to Obama. Obviously, there was ample attention to Jennifer Flowers, pot smoking, etc. It was more the inattention to his policy prescriptions, record in Arkansas, and persistent lying about our campaign,” Matalin added.
And in a way, it paved the way to today’s public reaction to the media hits on Trump.
“Trump’s ability to get his message out through unconventional means is nothing short of miraculous. But it could not have happened or continue to be so effective if the public was not ‘ripened’ … from Bush to Trump by inauthentic reportage and agenda-setting bias. Not to mention, only episodic philosophical and policy allegiance by Republicans throughout the years, despite increasing support for conservative policy prescriptions,” she added.
Matalin isn’t surprised the public has turned on the press again. “The assaults on freedom of speech, religiosity combined with the hypocrisy of a Ruling Class exempting themselves from all the degenerative policies they imposed on the electorate, created a combustible environment and Trump picked up the fire starter,” she said.
