Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Blood, Sweat, Toil And Tears
Neocon speechwriter and part-time imperialist David Frum is just starting to realize that Bush's public pronouncements are not winning over the masses. Dear Leader keeps promising major speeches to the networks, but keeps delivering the same speech we've heard over and over again. Obviously, the war is going great -- so it's the message that's at fault. So what to do, what to do?
The president could have made news yesterday by itemizing the reasons to regard Iraq more positively than most journalists do. He could have ticked off some of the achievements daily posted on the centcom.mil site.... He could have teased details even out of the mainstream media....Or, alternatively, the president could have skipped the good news and delivered a blood, sweat, toils, and tears speech: Yes things are hard, harder in fact than expected, but the stakes remain enormous - and here is why we must win, and why I am determined to fight this thing through to victory. That would be powerful too.I give Frum credit for finally blaming someone besides the hated MSM for the unpopularity of this war. But he's got a long way to go. As Frank Rich pointed out recently, it's too late now for Bush to go to the American people and demand they make difficult sacrifices.As it is, though, he says nothing, and is perceived to say nothing, and soon nobody will be listening at all, if anybody still is.
He should try leveling with them sometime. You never know, it might work.
