[risk]

What do you think about the way the Bush administration has been explaining the war to the world? I've been of the opinion that the cognitive dissonance involved is responsible for at least 20% of the acrimony. I'm supportive of their overall strategy but I wish they could be more direct about it. It seems we'd gain support from people on the fence who matter and have less to explain to our detractors.

[Prodigal Son]

What do you think about the way the Bush administration has been explaining the war to the world?

Personally, I think the administration is on its heels right now for a number of reasons: opposition politics, election season, the impatience of the American people etc.

But I think one of the worst dangers for the administration is they are dealing with a society at large- I mean the entire Western world- that is largely dysfunctional. In this day and age, people would rather see a person like Saddam in power than not.

I don't believe the administration has truly grasped that fact. Which is understandable because it is a hard fact to grasp. I think the administration is relying upon people to have a little common sense and look at the situation, weigh it up and see that in the end, the positives outweigh the negatives and even without the WMD, this was the right thing to do and this was the time to do it.

I'm not sure this is such a good thing to rely upon- the good judgement of modern Western minds.

I think the administration has to keep selling the positives. That's all they can do. Sell the positives and produce more positives- like capturing Osama or finding a rogue nuke somewhere. They've sort of locked themselves into a certain game plan and they're going to have to stick with it and hope for the best.