Missing Nixon's Image
KITMAN, MARVIN
On Television MISSING NIXON'S IMAGE BY MARVIN KITMAN I was wondering the other evening why the television networks don't use a little imagination and rerun our President's Inauguration? They...
...And unlike our present leader, Washington didn't make things very clear...
...He may next decide, the speculation runs, to become virtually invisible: All of his important addresses will be broadcast on the citizen radio bands, usually reserved for emergency services...
...His style is Bob Hope with Jack Benny gestures...
...This may be the reason the net works are afraid of using big words...
...The idea is not as ridiculous as it sounds: As a group the ham radio operators are probably no less reliable than TV news analysts...
...A highlight of the presentation on NBC, which stuck with the story to the bitter end, was catching the President wandering around the ballrooms telling jokes...
...since the swearing-in ceremony is traditionally a new government's finest hour...
...A second theory is that Nixon has the Lamont Cranston syndrome, a disability that affects people who grew up during the radio period of American history (circa 1930s...
...on a Wednesday and 6:01 P.M...
...Then there's the argument that Nixon is trying to reach the real political power in the community?the messengers in the garment center who walk around with transistors next to their ears, truck drivers in diners, traveling salesmen in their cars, housewives-the working classes...
...It is, therefore, a good medium for the President, but it leaves something out as a tool of information...
...It leads a person to believe he has extraordinary powers to fight evil as long as he is not seen by the general public...
...I don't understand this theory myself, since most of these people would be watching TV in prime time anyway...
...All of this had the effect of linking Nixon and Washington in the minds of TV viewers, a new experience for many...
...David Brinkley, for example, telephones every band in advance to find out if there is anything unusual that can be said about it...
...He doesn't mind, though, if millions hear him accidentally on radio...
...They don't indicate the many ways President Nixon is far superior to President Washington...
...One theory offered to explain this behavior is that the President has become famous for his low profile, and by going on the radio at these off-beat times he is trying to lower his profile still further...
...The trouble is the ghetto teams probably wouldn't have come...
...to him they are a big deal...
...In making his "Reports to the People" Nixon has chosen to use radio only, and at such odd hours as 12:06 P.M...
...His voice was nasal and squeaky, like Lincoln's...
...The commentators, surprisingly, didn't mention any of these facts, although the men who call the inaugurations as they see them come prepared with wads of unimportant information...
...If he were leading one of the bands it would probably wind up going in the wrong direction...
...It's a good thing there was no television during the first Presidential campaign...
...Nixon was hardly quicker in terminating the Vietnam conflict...
...Besides, the Administration itself would probably welcome double or triple or quadruple exposure (I see it as an annual special, a kind of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or The Wizard of Oz...
...The anchormen may not have been able to use all of the details they collected, but researching bands should at least improve Brinkley's standing with the Administration...
...While listening to his Inaugural I gathered that Nixon is first in peace or at least tied for the lead...
...Nixon is a better speller than Washington, who wrote in one of his early essays: "Never tell a lye...
...Washington was the first Chief Executive to take the oath of office on the Bible, CBS explained...
...But from the way the President has been avoiding the cameras recently, they may have missed their last chance...
...Nobody would have voted for a man with so little charisma...
...Three-man street football games, called "association...
...He's been doing that for years...
...He's first in war, too, according to the protesters at Union Station...
...As the President indicated in a brief, seemingly unscheduled, interview at the end of the parade, he likes high school marching bands...
...His disappearance from television may be a subtle loyalty test...
...on a Sunday...
...On Inauguration Day there may be no important information...
...a news executive observed...
...Even Sammy Davis Jr...
...George Washington was a man of few words...
...The pointlessness of the day's activities was equalled by the night's affairs...
...No doubt he spends long nights in the Oval Room of the White House boning up on them, because he could tell them apart, praising this one for its beat, that one for its uniforms...
...Nixon is superior in church attendance...
...Theoretically, if you have nothing to say about something, you say nothing...
...Frankly, I suspect a large number of viewers didn't pay very much attention to the Inaugural ceremonies because they assumed they had four years to see their leader on television...
...Nixon's was definitely longer...
...one TV veteran explained...
...They like to hear sounds from a TV set as though it were a mother...
...Most Americans are like infants," a top network official confided to me...
...How much can go wrong with the country on opening day...
...His false teeth fit poorly...
...This may also be the reason he broke with tradition and sent a written State of the Union message to Congress, instead of appearing on Capitol Hill in person...
...His Inaugural Address in 1789 was only 130 words long...
...As I watched all the bands marching smartly past the reviewing stand, it occurred to me that the President might have been more pleased if football games were played in between the bands...
...Both were in the military before entering politics: George Washington made quite a name for himself in the Army, and Lieutenant Commander Nixon served in the Navy...
...managed to get the flu...
...He was the first to be rowed to his Inauguration on a barge, NBC informed everyone...
...We should recall that the father of our country was an elementary school dropout...
...The President's enemies in the media have noted how he sweats in front of the cameras...
...Babies don't understand when you speak to them it's just the sense of being spoken to, so we talk to the public even if we have nothing to say...
...It will then be up to the ham radio operators of America to spread the word about what the White House has to say...
...It is well known that Nixon was up early the Saturday of his swearing-in composing his own material...
...Nixon knows as much about high school bands as football...
...And judging by the 1972 election returns, he must be right up with the frontrunners as the person who is first in the hearts of his countrymen...
...Nixon going on radio is like Lincoln delivering his Gettysburg Address by Morse Code...
...But such loose comparisons between the two men tell only half the story...
...Yet Washington's hands shook so badly when he read his Inaugural Address that a Congressman had to hold the sheet of paper for him...
...Moreover, most of the prose Washington is remembered for was authored by his ghost writer Alexander Hamilton, the Henry Kissinger of his day...
...He has a more outstanding record on civil rights...
...Apparently this year's festivities reminded many network commentators of President Washington's Inauguration, a natural association, perhaps, with the Bicentennial so near...
...Millions of dollars not to mention huge amounts of time and emotional energy go into producing the quadrennial spectaculars, so sound business sense alone should dictate additional telecasts of the event that distinguishes our democracy from a totalitarian state...
...He is nicer to his mother...
...It doesn't work that way in television, however...
...Certainly none of the inaugural balls were up to the soirees given by the Emperor of Austria...
...Personally, I think the only advantage to radio as a means for explaining how you're going to balance the budget, etc., is that it eliminates the necessity of looking the American people in the eye...
...never having owned a single slave And most obvious of all, Nixon had a higher TV rating for his Inauguration than Washington...
...Washington took years to bring the American Revolution to an end...
...would have been perfect for these intervals, and champion teams from all the ghettos could have competed for a Nixon Trophy to be awarded at the end of the parade...
...They rebroadcast almost all the other inferior action-adventure shows and situation comedies at least once...
...Other similarities between the two men abound...
...Or maybe the President simply can't stand being watched by 60 million people anymore...
...For one thing...
...The two Presidents are also alike in their iove for violent sports though nobody dared laugh at Washington for following the foxes as some wiseacres do over Nixon's football mania...
...Finally, it has been suggested that by going on radio at different times, Nixon is determining whether the voters are really interested enough to follow him, to seek him out...
...Actually, there is something Washingtonesque about the current White House occupant...
Vol. 56 • March 1973 • No. 6
