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Muffled Echoes: Oliver North and the Politics of Public Opinion . By Amy Fried. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 308p. $49.50 cloth, $19.50 paper.

that presidents will normally attempt to protect their popularity and professional reputation by responding symbolically rather than substantively to public demands. Symbolic responses are by no means devoid of substance, but they eschew specific commitments whenever possible. They leave presidents with room to work out details with advisers, party leaders, the cabinet, Congress, and other relevant actors and interests. Cohen devotes most of his chapters to empirical tests of this theory. He considers four stages of policymaking: problem identification, substantive rhetoric, policy formulation, and policy legitimization. He uses State of the Union addresses from 1953 through 1989 to develop measures of problem identification and substantive rhetoric. He then employs these measures as both independent and dependent variables in regression models that relate them to problems and preferences reported in public opinion polls. He also compares presidential rhetorical liberalism to positions taken by the Americans for Democratic Action and to "public moods" as measured by Stimson (Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles and Swings, 1991) (policy formulation). Finally, he compares public mood with announced presidential positions on congressional roll calls (policy legitimization). By and large the results affirm the theory. Presidential rhetoric is highly responsive to public opinion regarding problem identification. It is less responsive or not at all responsive regarding substantive rhetoric, policy formulation or legitimization. Cohen includes eight case studies that illustrate his results. Whether or not to accept these results rests upon the validity of Cohen's measures. Does classifying the sentences of 33 State of the Union Addresses (and of four substitute speeches) comprise a valid operational procedure for measuring presidential responsiveness to public opinion? Is the latest Gallup poll preceding the presidential address a valid indicator of the public's policy priorities or its preferences? Cohen is the first to admit that "much policy making happens between Addresses" (p. 37), and in his case studies he makes little or no mention of them. He is also candid in admitting that he has so few cases and so many independent variables (often correlated with one another) that his multivariate equations include only the best-fitting subsets of independent variables. Statistically, however, if you try enough combinations of these variables, you are bound to find good fits here and there.