George Bush may be in danger of losing even MORE independent voter support as he veers into dangerous rhetorical territory:
NEW YORK Meeting briefly with reporters Monday aboard Air Force One, Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman subbing for Scott McClellan, said that President Bush believes that those who want the U.S. to begin to change course in Iraq do not want America to win the overall “war on terror.
Duffy spoke on a day when a surprisingly large antiwar protest met the president during his stay in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention.
Speaking to reporters, Duffy said that Bush “can understand that people don’t share his view that we must win the war on terror, and we cannot retreat and cut and run from terrorists, but he just has a different view. He believes it would be a fundamental mistake right now for us to cut and run in the face of terrorism, because if we’ve learned anything, especially from the 9/11 Commission Report, it is that to continue to retreat after the Cole, after Beirut and Somalia is to only empower terrorists and to give them more recruiting tools as they try to identify ways to harm Americans.
“So he believes that people have a fundamental right to express their views. That’s one of the reasons we’re fighting this war on terrorism, to protect our fundamental rights. But at the same time, he disagrees strongly.”
What does the above Editor & Publisher report suggest? Several possibilities. It may be:
- That the President honestly believes those who don’t agree with his war policy don’t care about terrorism. That would, of course, include Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and various Republican bloggers and columnists who’ve begun to criticize it and even suggest it might be time for some kind of pullout timetable. Did these folks know that they “don’t share his view that we must win the war on terror…”? We bet they are “deluded” into thinking that they are also PATRIOTS who merely feel a different course on the war is better for this country.
- That by using this argument the White House is signalling that it will try to shore up support on the war by seeking to to further divide the United States electorate — painting those who oppose the war as people who in general want to do little or nothing about the war on terrorism.
- That Bush’s advisors have dropped the ball and aren’t using the best arguments they have for the war and erred by using this line.
- That the administration’s critics on the left are correct: that the various speeches by Bush, the seemingly different-reason-of-the-week explanations on why the U.S. is fighting the war, news reports offering contradictory info and prediction from administration sources, etc. signal a growing sense of frustration and — here is the dreaded word — desperation on when and how there will be an end game on this war.
But no matter what is going on, one certainty is this: saying that those who differ from the administration on Iraq don’t care about the final result in the war in terror is (a)not true, (b)going to polarize the country even more.
If the White House feels Iraq is vital to the war on terror then they need to make the case in highly SPECIFIC TERMS minus political labeling and demonization.
Just consider some of the new assertions coming out of the White House:
- People who disagree with Bush’s policies are pro-terrorist. It’s a new twist on McCarthyism.
- We need to fight continue to fight the war because so many have died fighting it. There ARE better arguments out there. Why not use them?
If the new battle cry is that those who criticize the war don’t care about terrorism, the time may be drawing near when many more moderates and independents may break totally from this administration — even if they believe (as yours truly does) that a speedy withdrawal before stability is in place would be catastrophic. Many moderates and centrists may not wish to be associated with people who argue that those questioning administration policies are pro-terrorist. That assertion doesn’t stand up to even a quick Google check. Various polls such as this one show Bush is already suffering significant erosion in support from independents.
Indeed, rather than honoring the memory of Americans killed in the war, Bush’s spokesman seems to be honoring the memory of Senator Joe McCarthy. (Who does he think he is: Ann Coulter?)
As for Bush sans press mouthpiece, he said yesterday that anti-war activist and grieving mom Cindy Sheehan and her ilk advocate policies that’ll weaken the United States. That’s a FAR CRY from saying that Sheehan and those who support her don’t care about terrorism. Bush continues to refuse to meet with Sheehan.
Dante Chinni, writing in The Christian Science Monitor, notes that in practical terms (as we’ve said here as well) Bush can’t meet with every relative who has lost a loved one and wants to talk to the President. But, he writes, this case could be a tipping point for Bush and the war:
The question for the president is, now what? Meeting with Sheehan at this point is extremely unlikely. It would almost certainly be portrayed as “caving” in some way – even if it did defuse the situation somewhat. The problem is that if he does nothing, the situation almost certainly won’t go away on its own. Sheehan has decided to keep the PR push going with that most favorite and telegenic move, a bus tour, helping generate local press coverage nationwide. And she has set the stage for what could become a pivotal moment in the Bush presidency Sept. 24 when she arrives in Washington for a “Peace and Justice” rally.
Such rallies against the Iraq war have gone on since its start, but never when the public was as unhappy as it is now and when the press was so tuned in. This could spell real trouble for the White House.
Once issues and movements reach a critical mass they take on a life of their own and become very difficult to stop.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich likens it to an “insurgency” at home and writes that “this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq.”
Even if Chinni’s and Rich’s predictions prove to be overreaching, the polling and press narrative factors don’t look good for the White House. And BOTH SIDES sides now face potential pitfalls.
—Sheehan and anti-war activists: doing something that angers public opinion.
—The White House: an incident by counter protesters or war supporters that angers public opinion. Backlash over the line about war critics not caring about terrorism.
The context: falling or stagnant political polls suggest its hard for the White House to persuade many Americans when it tries to get its polling numbers up.
The danger: more than ever the White House is at the mercy of unforeseen events — and the consequences of comments such as Duffy’s that will not win the administration new support but only erode the eroding support it already has.
Writes Bull Moose:
We must prevail in the Iraq – but that is impossible without the support of an unified nation. In pursuit of partisan advantage, the Bushies have squandered the unity necessary to win a war.
Our country desperately needs a new politics of national unity and service. For too long, the national interest has taken a back seat to the obsessions of the left and the right to score polarizing, partisan, political points. Can either of the two parties produce an elevated politics? Or is there a need for a new vehicle?
UPDATE: Sheehan responds in a Kos diary to Bush’s comments about her and her supporters wanting to weaken America. She pulls no punches (and her post will provide bloggers with lots of quotes and debates..) One key quote:”I didn’t ask him to withdraw the troops, I asked him what Noble Cause did Casey die for. I am still waiting for one of the press corps to ask him that. I am still waiting for that answer.”
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Restless Mania
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.