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Say Wha?

Exit strategies and exit polls

By ROBERT FRIEDMAN
Published December 11, 2005

Some people have suggested that these photos of President Bush are a metaphor for this administration's broader problem with "exit strategies." Say Wha? won't go there. Instead, we'll just note that the photos carry forward our nation's rich bipartisan tradition of enjoying the sight of our presidents looking ridiculous.

Who can forget Gerald Ford stumbling down the steps of Air Force One? Lyndon Johnson showing off his surgery scar? Richard Nixon doing his creepy victory sign? Jimmy Carter using a canoe paddle to fend off a killer rabbit? Or William Henry Harrison refusing to wear a heavy coat during his inauguration and dropping dead from pneumonia?

So President Bush is in good company. At least his Asia trip was a success in the sense that he didn't throw up on anyone in public, which is more than his father can say.

Anyway, speaking of exit strategies, it turns out that the president has one after all. The 35-page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" was posted on the White House's Web site the other day as part of a new media blitz that began with the president's speech to midshipmen at Annapolis.

Sure, it would have been nice to see a 35-page strategy for victory before the war started, but White House operatives saw no reason to bother with such a bulky document back when they were expecting the Iraqi people to throw rose petals at our troops' feet and offer to pay for the U.S. occupation with their new oil revenues.

It also would have been nice if the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" had come from Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, instead of Peter Feaver, public opinion professor.

But, according to reports, the Annapolis speech and 35-page Web document are largely the work of Feaver, a political scientist at Duke whose expertise is in public opinion, not military strategy or national security. Feaver started doing work for the White House earlier this year after he and Duke colleagues released polling data suggesting new ways for winning public support for the war.

"This is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency," Christopher Gelpi, the Duke co-author of Feaver's research on American tolerance for war casualties, told the New York Times. "The Pentagon doesn't need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion."

John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, told the New York Times he doesn't think the president's new strategy - which he described as "very Feaverish, or Feaveresque" - will produce more than short-term improvement in public support for the war. But Mueller and others noted that the rhetoric (the president used the word "victory" 15 times in the Annapolis speech) fits Feaver's theory that the public will support relatively heavy U.S. casualties in a war that is perceived as winnable.

For someone who often claims not to care about public opinion, the president has been in a frenzy of Iraq speechifying ever since Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., publicly turned against the war last month.

The president and his inner circle had no problem demonizing Michael Moore, Howard Dean or even Cindy Sheehan when they were the most prominent faces of antiwar sentiment. Even many of the administration's own generals and policymakers have been effectively marginalized after voicing internal criticism of war strategy.

But the White House hasn't figured out what to do with Murtha, a burly, straight-talking 37-year Marine and Vietnam veteran with close ties to the Pentagon.

First, they foolishly tried to give Murtha the Michael Moore treatment. They sent out White House spokesman Scott McClellan to say he found it "baffling that (Murtha) is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party." When that didn't work, they brought Vice President Dick Cheney out of his secret lair to lead the trashing of Murtha.

"I like guys who've never been there who criticize us who've been there," Murtha said of Cheney. "I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and sent people to war and then don't like to hear suggestions (about) what may need to be done."

That caused Cheney to back off a bit, calling Murtha "a good man, a Marine, a patriot" who is nevertheless engaged in a "dangerous illusion" about Iraq. And Cheney knows a dangerous illusion about Iraq when he sees one.

But the most despicable slander of Murtha came from freshman U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, who claimed during a November House debate that a Marine in Iraq had asked her to send a message to Murtha: "Cowards cut and run; Marines never do." That outburst provoked several courageous Democrats to rush to the well of the House to denounce Schmidt. Then they went back to hiding behind Murtha's coattails.

While the Bush administration is still scrambling to develop one Iraq strategy, congressional Democrats still have at least three. Murtha wants to pull back our combat troops to secure positions within six months. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., is even more hawkish than Cheney. And Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., still feels strongly both ways.

It's a reflection of how far this country has run off the rails that, in an August special election, the presumably sane voters of Ohio's 2nd congressional district chose a unprincipled wackjob like Schmidt over Democrat Paul Hackett, a smart and telegenic (if slightly too glib) Iraq veteran who talked more sense on the war than any sitting member of Congress. It was like choosing Cloris Leachman's Frau Blucher over Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith.

[Last modified December 9, 2005, 18:41:02]