Cats and Haitians

What Richard Nixon understood about outsmarting the media

In Patrick Buchanan’s memoir of working for Richard Nixon in 1965-1968, The Greatest Comeback, Pat recounts one of Tricky Dick’s cleverer tricks.

I don’t recall the exact example he gave of the first time Nixon did it, but it went something like this: When Nixon was out on the campaign trail tirelessly speaking for Republican candidates in 1966, Pat would write a speech for Nixon saying (I’m making up all the italicized quotes in this post):

According to an authoritative new study by the National Institute of Whatever, LBJ’s vaunted X program has caused a horrific 84% of its Y to be Z.

Nixon would deliver Buchanan’s draft word for word, except he’d boost the statistic:

According to an authoritative new study by the National Institute of Whatever, LBJ’s vaunted X program has caused a horrific 93% of its Y to be Z.

When Pat pointed out that, actually, the number was 84%, which is a huge, shocking figure by itself so there is no need to say it is 93%, Nixon replied: