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Digest of Recent Press Comment September 4, 1971 THE PRESIDENT Whether or not you like how he S done it, RN has reasserted the simple truth that the US President can still exercise more power than any other man on earth. He has again made liars out of pundits who rushed to write his political obit. RN is seeking to revitalize the Presidency and he has done it none too soon. After limping thru the 60s, the nation came to believe that "Presidents are for -shots. 11 But with two swift moves, RN has 'turned the nation S back on that disemboweling decade. 11 RN is moving the US in the only direction it can go, forward to change; he has moved the US off dead center. "One waits for a Presidential encore. 11 And judging from his past performance, it could be anything; China and the economy sent the conservatives howling but Cambodia and Laos did the same for liberals. In effect, the US once again has a President. RN's will not be the sorry legacy of LBJ. "He will gamble on change and seek to leave a presidency without cowardice and a nation without fear. 11 (8/27 Richmond News Leader edit) Summertime TV is becoming livelier with RN coming on every so often with a bold new program. He has displayed a masterful use of TV and it would be "sheer nitpicking" to criticize simply because RN has succeeded in fooling the press; it would be impossible to deny him the right to come up with dramatic surprises. Nevertheless, RN knows that denials never catch up with the original story and likewise the little fish- hooks in a new policy are often obscured by the dramatics. So the VC proposal is unanswered, the war is on the back pages, the contention of Edgar Snow and James Reston that the PRC visit will mean little on specific issues is largely unnoticed -- as is the charge that job creation thru NEP's tax credits is "exceedingly dubious. 11 The housewife in the store wonders how the government can help her with what she knows is a higher price but that matter hasn't been discussed. In fact, AG Mitchell, who is supposed to enforce the freeze, wasn't at RN's meeting with MCs but in the tumult "no one noticed. 11 (Saul Friedman in 8/19 Miami Herald) ECONOMY It was VP Agnew who convinced RN not to take the bludgeon to Meany. Few know of the VP's intimate friendship with RN, or the real nature of