Talk:Almond–Lippmann consensus

I'm removing the "unreferenced article cleanup" stamp because I just fixed it. Regards, Warren Fish (talk) 01:43, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

"Public Opinion is Irrelevant" section
The "Public Opinion is Irrelevant" section should be removed. It reflects a misunderstanding: that the Almond-Lippmann consensus claims that public opinion on foreign policy is absolutely irrelevant, in that politicians don't ever think about it. What the A-L consensus actually says is that public opinion is irrelevant in policy formulation, and that public opinion regarding foreign policy is guided by policy decisions of elected leaders -- in other words, the A-L consensus argues that policy decisions "wag the dog" of public opinion. Bill Clinton's interest in maintaining public support for the excursions in Bosnia and Kosovo doesn't contradict the A-L consensus, it reinforces it.

I'm posting here first in case anyone has any objections to removing the section. If not, I'll take care of it. -- NamibiaCoastGuard (talk) 20 April 2011

Need for improving first sentence???
The very first sentence is quite ambitious in attempting to summarize what takes a whole paragraph in the WP-article "Walter Lippman", legacy section, where it is admirably expressed. This sentence needs either some skillful editing; but would be more understandable if broken down into three points, modeling the structure as in the WP article mentioned above. Is there not someone who delights in such tasks to do this? My attempts as a newbie won't suffice. Idealist707 (talk) 08:44, 28 December 2011 (UTC)