NPR: Bush Sells War Optimism, but Not Everyone Is Buying

Bush Sells War Optimism, but Not Everyone Is Buying

You really have to give President Bush credit: He stays on message. Regardless of what is happening, he doesn't seem to waiver in his depiction of the war in Iraq — that the latest strategy (currently, the surge) appears to be working and that momentum is on the American side.

That's the message he gave to the American Legion convention on Tuesday. It's almost the same message he gave the group last year as well, when he said, "America has a clear strategy to help the Iraqi people protect their new freedom and build a democracy that can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself."

But The Washington Post reports that the message was greeted with more skepticism this year. A few months after last year's speech, U.S. officials acknowledged that sectarian violence had spun out of control and that the strategy to increase security had collapsed. That has some vets wary this time. "His credibility went way down" after past predictions fell short, said Dave Rehbein, a Vietnam War-era veteran at the convention.

Recent upbeat assessments by visitors to Iraq have helped bolster the president's message, but some analysts say Bush has a tendency to oversell that may hurt him.

"The history of this presidency has been to over-promise and under-perform," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The resulting expectations have often led Americans to feel like we are failing. From what I have seen to date, we are repeating the process."

Well, it looks like we'll soon get a chance to see what Congress thinks about the momentum. On the same day Bush spoke to the Legion, a White House official told the Post that the president plans to ask Congress in September to give him an additional $50 billion to fight the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

10:09 AM ET | 08-29-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

This is, after all, why many (the majority?) of people voted for Mr. Bush. Their thought being that he knew what he stood for and stuck with it - unswayed by public opinion polls or changing fortunes.

There is something to be said for this but in my view, being somewhat attuned to what the public wants is not a bad thing, either. Yes, public opinion is often short term and a good leader needs to have a long term view. But completely disregarding what the people you govern want is also a mistake. But as long as calling someone a "flip flopper" is a productive campaign strategy, we will be stuck with leaders who don't know how to change direction or admit mistakes.

Sent by Jim Dodd | 11:57 AM ET | 08-29-2007

All throughout his tenure, President Bush has had enormous difficulty admitting mistakes. Any statement that things are not going well in Iraq would seem to be, in his mind, the admission of a mistake. Whether or not this behavior reflects his actual internal perceptions or is simply a strategy that he thinks best to employ, is a crucial point we'll likely never know. The American people, to a degree that seem to grow daily, simply no longer listen to the president with the expectation of learning anything factual about the conduct of this nation's business.

Sent by Abraham Lewis | 2:34 PM ET | 08-29-2007

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