Posted on 01/18/2007 7:29:37 AM PST by Valin
PR for this administration has come up short....
Understatement of the day!
multi-tasking right now....
I think they have accepted that they don't have popular support, and that history will be the final judge.
Any future admin. is going to have to have a 24-7 media person who's only job is PR. Or a whole army of them.
Oh great. The biddie-brigade will be here soon trashing this article for even suggesting Bush's admin. is weak on the information war.
Hugh makes GREAT points. Here is one of our biggest problems. When the Clintons got caught up in something (which seemed to happen every other day), they sent at least a dozen of their minions everywhere to cover their butts, and they DID NOT worry about being accurate. It makes it harder for our side, but it is not an excuse. The PR has been abysmal. Tony has certainly improved the WH press conferences, but beyond that, we don't get much of anything.
You do nothing but Bash the president 24/7, so calling names about the biddie brigade is expected from the likes of you.
I am sick of what appears to be a weakening of Will here. . .or is easily translated as weakness.
This is not the first; but Bush had better get a grip. Sick of this. . .
The Administration is 1980's IBM.
The enemy is Microsoft.
Let's hope this is not correct long term. Unfortunately it's spot on for what's happened to date.
Am giving up on this. . .trying to locate the Will of Repubs; who seem to think if Rush flexe it for them; that is all they need. . .in addition to the apparent fact; they they simply WILL NOT go to war on the political home front.
I am more than disgusted with our spineless, AWOL Repub leadership.
The biggest failure in all of this is the inability to recognize that warfare has changed. Videocameras, blogs, and spin are the weapons of the 21st century. From a PR standpoint, we send our our fantastic military like WWI generals sending horse cavalry into the mouths of enemy machine guns.
We have GOT to wrap our heads around the concept of media centric warfare, and abandon obsolete warfighting strategies. Otherwise, our enemies will stick to bleeding our willpower dry, and defeating billion dollar war efforts with thousand dollar insurgencies.
That's exactly right! During World War II, the Roosevelt Administration, the War and Navy Departments, and all the big federal agencies involved in the war effort did a masterful job of "selling" the war to the American public, thus building patriotism, educating the homefront about the exact nature of the enemy, and keeping morale high.
Sadly, this administration has been hopelessly inept at all of this, with the end result that the American public is hopelessly confused about what we are fighting for and how we are doing in GWOT.
Unlike World War II, where you had Audie Murphy and Snuffy Smith, there are no real heroes who have been publicized for their deeds, and none of our top generals are even known to the public at large, unlike Patton, Eisenhower, Bradley, Nimitz, Halsey, etc.
In short, the Bush Administration has essentially conceded the information war to both the jihadists and the Democrats, and we shall all suffer for it in the long run.
Now the whole war effort is being undermined by a replay of the elite media/anti-war campaign which condemned Southeast Asia to a holocaust, and the White House is flat-footed. Even the most able press secretary in a generation cannot be everywhere. Snow needs every Administration official to be part of the effort to persuade the country, and not just to show up, but to be smart on the details and the threat. When cabinet officials make appearances, they cannot be tired of their own points. Worn down or out? Then quit. Still committed to the idea that the Administration is engaged in defending the country? Then get the details right and communicate them.
Why do nine brigades matter?
What about Sadr?
What are the consequences of retreat?
Even with Tony Snow on board these people have been totally inept at the information war.
Either that, or they have intentionally done such a lousy job. It's almost to the point of saying that no one could have done so poorly without concerted, determined negligence every step of the way.
By this stage of the game this Admin. is not going to change the way they deal with this subject, I'm hoping for better from the next.
A couple of examples
Send people out who have just returned from Iraq, Afghanistan to talk about what's really happening, I'm not talking about Generals, but lower ranks.
Get someone who understands the Arab/Islamic world to start flooding their media with the who, what where and why we are doing what we're doing.
while I'm at it they could do a much better job of explaining this to the American people. (given what kind of comments I see here on Islam and the GWOT, it's really needed).
That has been a problem that has continually plagued this Administration since 01: No PR.
And with no PR, they can't even think about getting their message out. All they seem to do is play defense -- a week late.
Bush thought he brought a new tone to Washington in 01.
It has eaten him alive. He should have known better. After all, his Dad was a politician, too, and knew how Washington was.
But, as with the Dubia ports and Harriet Miers, GW is like a pitbull with his jaws locked on bringing that new tone.
How many more knives will Teddy K manage to insert during the next two years?
I also don't think that the Republicans in Congress have given anywhere near the level of vocal support to the President that they should. And I mean from the very beginning, not just recently.
That are a multitude of ways the Admin could have gotten their messages out -- but they had to do it, which they didn't.
The excuses from the Bots -- that the Media to mean to them -- just doesn't wash.
Reagan was no media darling, yet he managed to get his message out.
Several times, Bush had political capital, and instead of using the bully pulpit to get some real accomplishments, he squandered the capital. Heck, he couldn't even find the veto pen until he found it for something as nationally important as --- stem cell research.
Bush, at any time during his presidency, could have ask for -- and he would have received -- network air time.
Even this last speech showed him as a weak, hesitant president.
Where was the Bush who gave those inspiring speeches in front of the troops a year or two ago? We saw those hidden away on cable news channels. Never once was such a speech given on national television. They all should have been.
One thing's for sure, the PR machine will be a lot smarter if the next Administration is a Democrat one. The Republicans lead with their chin on every PR battle the go in to. It's amazing what slow learners they're proving to be.
I'll say it again. Media centric warfare is the way of the future. It can be used, negated or co-opted, but it cannot be ignored. Handling the media the way that the current Administration has will prove increasingly fatal to future endeavors.
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