In the continuing quest to promote their “narcissist” meme, Faux Noise has been counting the number of times the president uses the first-person singular pronoun in his speeches. Of course, they do this without context or comparison. Mark Lieberman makes quick comparative studies of speeches by Palin and John Boehner and finds (unsurprisingly) that this new line of linguistic attack blows up in their faces:
Satire aside, let me emphasize again my conviction that these numbers are meaningless without further context and analysis, except perhaps as an index of pundits’ idiocy or malice. Such proportions vary widely with formality, interactivity, and other obvious factors — and there are several different sorts of I and we, as James Pennebaker explains in his post “What is ‘I’ saying?“, 8/9/2009. But those who think that such counts and rates are a useful measure for one public figure should be honest enough to try the same metric across the board.
Of course, Faux Noise keeps hitting on the idea of Obama’s “permanent campaign” mode as something unprecedented and unnecessary even in the face of their very own 24-7 campaign of noise and nonsense. The White House seems even less interested in the Beltway village than before:
“We ran everything through one strategic filter – how does this help us win the election?” said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, who held the same title during the campaign. “Anything that didn’t help us do that, we didn’t do.”
[...]
The emphasis on impact is reflected in the 10 interviews Obama has chosen to do so far this year – three with high-profile television anchors, including an interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric that was broadcast live before the Super Bowl; four interviews with prominent national magazines; a national radio interview; and the online YouTube interview that incorporated questions from the public.
The 10th interview, with the Bloomberg subsidiary Business Week, was the only one the president has done this year with a reporter who regularly covers the White House, a group often more familiar than anchors or other high-wattage interviewers with the daily ups and downs of the president and his policies.
But it’s all grist for the mill, right? Obama controlling his message is “controlling the press oh noes!” and his speeches are narcissistic because, well, just because. And our permanent campaign to fill our viewers’ heads with bullshit is no reason for the president to step up his game. See how that works?
