FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: DROWNING IN DENIAL
Bob Woodward's new book has trapped the Bush administration in a panic--and all because of one simple word: denial. As a result, the White House has spent the week chasing around for a place to hide. But why has Woodward's...
Bob Woodward's new book has trapped the Bush administration in a panic--and all because of one simple word: denial.
As a result, the White House has spent the week chasing around for a place to hide.
But why has Woodward's "denial" trapped the Bush administration? The answer has little to do with the individual of the book--most of which are already known--but about the logic of the frame.
Denial as Woodward has used it is a trap with no way out for the Bush administration: faced with reality, they refute it. Denial meets denial: trapped!
Naming the condition has been Wooodward's political equivalent of kicking out the walls of the White House, exposing everyone to the full light of day with no place to hide.
It's the oldest trick in the book--the tactic that gave Woodward a name during the Watergate scandal. The only way out of the "denial" frame is to agree. And so the story becomes a mad scramble of "last man standing"--last person to agree is left holding the guilt.
© 2006 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop
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