Bush Interview Confirms Strategy Shift genre: Just Jihad & Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation
In an NBC News interview aired on Tuesday evening, President Bush discussed the Iraq invasion and the war on terror in terms consistent with the strategy shift reported by Thought Theater nearly a week ago in the eighth posting on "Political Strategy". In simple terms, the strategy is to frame the two issues in the form of questions intended to force Americans to ponder the risks to their own personal security should they decide to abandon the GOP position and vote to give Democrats control of the House or the Senate. By asking questions, they are able to invoke the principles that underlie a psychological construct defined in "Terror Management Theory"...summarized as a uniquely human awareness of our own mortality and the terror that it creates. Read the full MSNBC article here.
NEW ORLEANS - Calling resistance against terrorism the “defining struggle of the 21st century," President Bush declared Tuesday that he would not let Americans’ frustration with the war deter him from finishing the job in Iraq.
“I have been saying all the time that we need perseverance and patience and the willingness to defeat a terrorist organization, an ideology of hate, with not only military action but the spread of freedom," he said.
“I believe this is the calling of our time."
Bush said he could “understand the frustrations of our citizens." But “if we retreat for the sake of popularity, is that the smart thing to do? My answer is absolutely not," he said. “It’d be a huge mistake to give the battlefield to these extremists.
“We retreat, they follow us," he added. “And I see this clearly as day."
With the President's comments, he becomes one of many within the GOP to begin to discuss Iraq and the war on terror with rhetorical questions. I first noticed the shift with a speech delivered by Karl Rove and then followed up by Dick Cheney. I'm convinced that with the President following suit, there has been a clear, though subtle, strategic shift. The President also emphatically reiterated that Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11...a further piece of the strategy shift intended to co-opt the Democratic mantra that the Bush administration is trying to conflate Iraq and 9/11.
Bush shot back at critics who accused him of having misled the public into believing Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks: “They weren’t Iraqis, nor did I ever say that Iraq ordered that attack," he said.
But he said the intense violence in Iraq was a sign of how entrenched the terrorist movement was there, making it all the more important that the United States draw a line in the sand.
“These terrorists have made it clear they want us to leave Iraq prematurely, and why is it?" he asked. “Because they want a safe haven. They’d love to get ahold of oil. They have territorial ambitions. ...
“I personally do not believe Saddam Hussein picked up the phone and said to al-Qaida, ‘Attack America.’ [But] he was on our state-sponsor-of-terrorists list, and he was paying families of suiciders. He also, by the way, had weapons of mass destruction at one time and had the capacity to make them. That’s a dangerous mix."
Note the effort to shift the focus from the poor execution of the Iraq conflict to a greater concern about what would happen with the war on terror should we leave Iraq before the job is complete. Again, he posits his concerns in the form of a question. As an aside, even David Letterman has caught wind of the shift as evidenced by a segment titled, "Laura Bush Interviews Herself"...a piece in which they spliced together a series of rhetorical questions she asked and answered when discussing the handling of Katrina in a recent interview.
It will be interesting to see how well the new strategy has worked in future polling on the President's approvals as well as his handling of the Iraq conflict and the war on terror. The most recent polling did seem to indicate some gains with regards to the handling of the war on terror, long seen to be one of his strengths by voters and clearly the issue upon which the GOP intends to campaign between now and November.
Daniel DiRito | August 30, 2006 | 10:33 AM
Comments
1 On August 30, 2006 at 8:14 PM, snapdragon wrote —
Bush is so ill now that he can't fathom stark reality. Bush says, “These terrorists have made it clear they want us to leave Iraq prematurely, and why is it?"
Bush cannot answer his own question. Does he think the Iraqis invited us to invade and destroy their country? Doesn't he think that, after five years of destruction, they might want our troops to go home? Is five years of American destruction "premature" for most Iraqis?
Bush doesn't appear to understand that he has created two opponents in Iraq. 90-95% are angry native Iraqis. 5-10% are angry young Arabs from elsewhere.
Bush simply labels all Iraqis as "terrorists" if they dare oppose his crude occupation and careless destruction of their country. Certainly most Iraqis now want us to leave. The non-Iraqis, however, actually want us to stay put. They prefer our troops to be sitting ducks, to keep pummeling them.
Obviously, these non-Iraqis can't continue to attack our troops once they leave. They can't easily follow our troops back to the US by swimming or catching the next bus across the Atlantic Ocean.
2 On August 31, 2006 at 1:13 PM, Lemming Herder wrote —
Those of you who follow my blog will know that I continually preach that the Republicans are incredible about defining issues in a way that matters to he voters.
It is clear the Iraq war is going poorly and the American people have had enough.
So what are the options?
Pull out of Iraq? Nah, clashes too much with the Stay the Course motto.
Redefine the issue? Ah! Here we have something.
http://dontbealemming.com/2006/08/31/are-you-ready-for-some-iraq-spin.aspx
Posted by the Lemming Herder from Don’t Be A Lemming!
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