The boy who cried wolf

The Washington Post reports today on Bush's tendency to depict every issue as a crisis, including Social Security, medical malpractice, and appointments to federal courts. He does this to create a gut response from people, but this overuse is going to lower his credibility even more:

"One of the key problems of this form of rhetorical leadership" is discerning the difference "between a genuine and manufactured crisis," said Jeffrey K. Tulis, author "The Rhetorical Presidency" and a government professor at the University of Texas. "People do respond to crisis -- if you think there is one, you tend to support the leader. The danger there is if it appears there is not one, you can have a credibility problem."