The Administration NEEDS To Get The Word Out

[Annie]

People don't understand more than they read in the paper or hear on the news. It's the job of the administration that the public does make the connections with clear examples and analysis. Links at site:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_9_19_05_0945.html

Monday, September 19 2005
INTERVIEWING THE ENEMY: It's not quite sleeping with them, but a bit unseemly nonetheless. In what I'm sure many on the left will hail as a sterling piece of "objective journalism," Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post turns to an expert to debunk claims by the U.S. military that they're making progress against the insurgency in Iraq:

The fact that American forces still attack entire cities and towns in the west is a sign of how much territory remains out of U.S. and Iraqi government control, said Abu Hatem Dulaimi, a member of the Zarqawi-allied Ansar al-Sunna Army.

"I can say that the legend of the undefeated U.S. Army is gone, owing to our rockets and mines, which are separating them from it day after day," Dulaimi said in a telephone interview. "If they bet that time will be the way to end the resistance, they are wrong, because we are stronger since a year ago or maybe more."

Twenty-five members of Ansar al-Sunna killed themselves and others in suicide attacks last month, he said, and 53 volunteers for suicide attacks have arrived since.

There's nothing quite like getting your enemy's propoganda served up unfiltered in a major American daily newspaper.

Meanwhile, if this little item from the Associated Press is accurate it would seem to merit at least as much attention as Knickmeyer gives to Dulaimi's claims:

A suicide bomber captured before he could blow himself up in a Shiite mosque late last week claimed he was kidnapped, beaten and drugged by insurgents who forced him to take on the mission. The U.S. military on Sunday said its medical tests indicated he was telling the truth.

This sounds remarkably similar to a September 14 DoD briefing where Colonel Robert Brown described the deterioration he's seen in the Iraqi insurgency over time (via Belmont Club):

And as we got to February and March, we saw a completely different foreign fighter. We've captured Libyans. We've captured Saudi, Yemenis, Algerians. And many of these -- one Libyan that we captured about a month and a half ago -- he was clearly brainwashed. And he was told that, you know, what was going on here and brainwashed to come and be a -- what he thought was -- he was going to be a foreign fighter against this crusade against the Muslim religion. He got here. He saw that was not correct. They told he was going to be a suicide martyr. He said he didn't want to do that.

The insurgency may not be in its "last throes" just yet, but these reports along with the fact that Zarqawi has now declared war on the Shiites suggest the insurgency may not be as strong as we think, but is instead scrapping, scraping, and pulling out all the stops to try and derail the coming elections. Iraq the Model, a blog every American should be forced to read, says the next few weeks are the biggest and toughest test Iraqis will ever have to face.

 

[Gunny]

People don't understand more than they read in the paper or hear on the news. It's the job of the administration that the public does make the connections with clear examples and analysis. Links at site:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_9_19_05_0945.html

A HUGE problem with the Republicans is they do not defend themselves and refute crap like this and other blatant BS. People believe this crap.

 

[Annie]

A HUGE problem with the Republicans is they do not defend themselves and refute crap like this and other blatant BS. People believe this crap.

Yup, agreed. It may well be one of the 'best run' administrations regarding leaking; timeliness, Katrina the example that proves the rule; staying on message; and loyalty. They have been horrendous though on communication-something GW should have learned about Ronald Reagan.

As long as I'm discussing 'staying on message', does the Katrina response remind anyone else of where this administration appeared heading in August of 2001? Compassionate conservativism of this ilk is not what I thought it was. I really had been dreading the domestic administration, then things changed. Katrina seems to have changed many things back, not for the better.

 

[insein]

A HUGE problem with the Republicans is they do not defend themselves and refute crap like this and other blatant BS. People believe this crap.

As much as they try to seem above it all, it does harm their image. People see it as being smug and indignant not confident or parental. They do need to do a better job at PR. The message isnt getting there. Sometimes you have to defend these claims. The problem is you give them credence when you do defend them and then the claims become more irrational. Thus it makes it seem like they are more true to those that believe the news.

I think PR has been Bush's biggest downfall. He has done the right thing most of the time and gone about it the right way, but his marketing campaign has been abysmal in selling it to the American People. They are left to believe what they see on TV or read in the newspaper which is mostly fabrication.

 

[Gunny]

As much as they try to seem above it all, it does harm their image. People see it as being smug and indignant not confident or parental. They do need to do a better job at PR. The message isnt getting there. Sometimes you have to defend these claims. The problem is you give them credence when you do defend them and then the claims become more irrational. Thus it makes it seem like they are more true to those that believe the news.

I think PR has been Bush's biggest downfall. He has done the right thing most of the time and gone about it the right way, but his marketing campaign has been abysmal in selling it to the American People. They are left to believe what they see on TV or read in the newspaper which is mostly fabrication.

I agree. I recall at the time wondering WHEN Bush I was actually going to campaign for office against Clinton. It cost him a second term, IMO. Bush II doesn't seem to have learned from daddy's mistakes.

At the same time, who was the last President to face as many potential or real calamities as Bush has? From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, to GTMO, to Katrina and now Rita, he really hasn't had much time to focus on anything but reacting to disaster. IMO, he's done as well as could be expected, and better than most.

But the left puts the worst possible light on it all, and he does absolutely nothing PR-wise to put the facts and the left's lies on the skyline.

Heh ..... Nixon would have had Hoover investigating them all.