Anti-Intellectual Presidency

"In The Anti-Intellectual Presidency, Elvin T. Lim draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate the relentless qualitative decline, over the course of the past 200 years, in our presidents' ability to communicate with the public. Lim argues that the ever-increasing pressure for presidents to manage and massage public opinion has created a "pathology of vacuous rhetoric and imagery," in which applause-rendering platitudes and punch lines matter more than arguments and facts."--Jacket.