Photo-op aircraft landing. (Letters to the Editor).

I disagree with you about President Bush's photo-op landing on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln ("Photo-op Patriotism" by William Norman Grigg; June 2nd issue of TNA). Yes, it was staged, but no mare so than MacArthur's return to the Philippines, the second-flagraising on Mt. Suribachi, or Lincoln's train ride to dedicate the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg. Moreover, all these events served a useful and legitimate objective: to rally and inspire soldiers and civilians in support of a cause. One may debate the righteousness of the cause, but insofar as the media offer a means to communicate widely with larger audiences, I see nothing wrong with these situations, and a lot which is right, both morally and in terms of effective public relations.

If you want to criticize misuse of the Oval Office, I suggest "press buyout" by the White House. At least since FDR, the presidency has gradually turned reporters from watchdogs into lapdogs. When President Clinton went to China, be brought along 350 reporters at a $10 million taxpayer expense -- the greatest number of reporters ever to travel with a president. News organizations should pay for their own travel rather than suck up junkets on public money.

Another example: the White House has for years had an annual Press Corps Dinner at which hundreds of reporters are boozed and schmoozed by the president. That is another waste of taxpayer money, and any reporter with integrity should spurn such an invitation. Instead, the networks send TV crews to cover the president and his family whenever they set foot aboard a plane or helicopter, as if climbing a set of stairs is a major news event. (It seemed the Clinton family went to Stair-climbing School because of their perfectly synchronized ascent to the door of Air Force One, at which point they would turn in unison and wave like they were an underwater ballet team.)

A final example: the nonevent in which a president signs a bill into law, writing his signature one letter at a time, using a different pen for each letter, and then offering the pens to key congresspeople who backed the bill. This silly ritual, typically in the Rose Garden, is utterly unnewsworthy. It is a waste of taxpayer money and television time, and it is the White House at its most superficial stagecraft using the co-opted media.

JOHN W. WHITE

Cheshire, Connecticut

If 19th-century presidential photo-ops were scripted the way they are today, President Lincoln might have arrived at Gettysburg on a galloping white stallion, in cavalry officer garb, his saber flashing in the air. And his handlers might have initially claimed that a train ride was not possible since the train did not stop at Gettysburg, only to acknowledge later that Mr. Lincoln could have traveled to Gettysburg by train but really wanted to experience firsthand what it was like to be in the cavalry. Then, at the ceremony itself everything might have been perfectly choreographed to make the grand event all about the president, as opposed to the fallen warriors the president was there to honor

Mr. Bush could have reached the USS Lincola by helicopter, despite the administration 's initial claim to the contrary. He did not have to arrive by military jet, dressed in a flight suit, boasting that he "flew it" as he emerged from the aircraft. He could even have given his speech within sight of land and still accomplished his objective of honoring the troops. Yet the homeward-bound USS Lincoln had to be slowed, even repositioned, to insure an azure background for the presidential photo-op.

Then again, if the president's sole purpose were to honor the troops, a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue, the triumphant warriors reviewed by the president and other dignitaries, might have been more fitting than a presidential photo-op attended by the troops. -- Ed.