The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.

• Author: Fuller, Frank

The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder By Mark Crispin Miller Norton. 290 pages. $24.95.

Mark Crispin Miller's new book, The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, provides some added ammunition to those disenchanted with our electoral process. His conclusion: We are no longer a democracy; we are a plutocracy. However, he doesn't even raise this issue until the Afterword. Most of the book wrestles with the question: How did someone like George W. Bush get to be President of the United States?

The answer is not simply that electoral votes were stolen in Florida; after all, it took Bush years to get to the place where some stolen votes could make him President. The answer involves much more, especially since so many people admit that Bush, while politically shrewd, is ignorant, illogical, and unfit to be President.

To understand how Bush became President, Miller looks first at the media, particularly at what he calls TV's "trivial world-view," which found in Bush the perfect candidate. "While Bush per se plays badly on the medium, the TV system as we know it is his natural ally--because both it and he are all about mere `message,' "he writes. "Both of them, in other words, are all about TV and nothing else."

A clear example of this occurred after the debates last fall, which the pundits said he won. Miller writes: "On CNN, for example, after the third encounter on October 17, Bob Novak got the ball rolling by suggesting that `there might have been a defeat for Gore on the likeability factor.' ... From there, Jeff Greenfield took the ball and ran a long way with it, wondering whether `Gore's clear decision to be aggressive, to try to define very sharp differences' might make him seem `assertive and tough minded' or `rude and smug' -- although `we're going to have to wait forty-eight hours or so to find out.' ... The `analysts' at CNN said not one word about the substance of the candidates' exchange."

After discussing a number of post-debate commentaries such as these, Miller then looks at ABC's Sunday morning talk show, This Week, and includes a transcript of the broadcast after the debates and two weeks before the election. In this show, Cokie Roberts said it wasn't important that Bush answer a direct question in the debates about the patient's bill of rights, because, "What comes across when you're watching the debate is this guy [Gore] from Washington doing Washington-speak." Sam Donaldson agreed by adding...