Posted on 01/18/2007 7:29:37 AM PST by Valin
The president gave the Library Room speech on January 10. Tony Snow had briefed some bloggers before the speech, and made a few appearances on talk radio afterwards (including on my program.) The Vice President appeared on Fox News Sunday four days later, and the National Security Advisor made the rounds of the other shows. Senator McCain, Governor Romney and Mayor Giuliani –the big three of the GOP presidential campaign—all endorsed the plan. The president appeared on 60 Minutes.
And that was it.
Media offensive over.
It never stood a chance.
First, business-as-usual dictated that the White House released all the crucial details before the speech, thus draining the address of audience and drama. Ratings were in the tank as a result, as one would expect from the closest thing to a rerun the political world sees. I asked Snow why the rush to gut the audience, and he explained how this allows the White House to get inside the MSM’s news cycle and thus positively affect the coverage.
Tony no doubt believes this. It is nonsense, though, and the new news cycle doesn’t care what the morning papers say or don’t say. Americans respond to first person appeals, not the laundered spin of the MSM –an impact that is not merely blunted but wholly destroyed by the promiscuous peddling of talking points prior to launch. If the president is going to have a chance of persuading the public, the public has to actually watch him. They didn't. He didn't. It isn't that complicated.
When I suggested that Steve Jobs built audience and interest by holding all details about the iPhone in the deep freezer, Tony responded that the war in Iraq isn’t the iPhone –completely true, of course, and completely beside the point. Creating audience and gaining credibility with it, whether the financial and electronics press, or the American public, always begins with the audience’s attention.
Want to kill all of the State of the Union’s impact? Tell everyone what is in it.
Want to build audience? Tell no one. Don’t even give a copy to the Speaker. Make her listen and react, and all the Congresspeople as well.
That’s point one. Now to the "follow up" that wasn’t.
Explaining why it is necessary to “surge” and why the sacrifice of American lives is not just noble, but necessary, requires a daily engagement by the Administration’s best communicators, and across the entire media spectrum. The center-right doesn’t much care what is said on Russert’s Sunday coffee clatch, and there is a good argument that independents don’t either. There is no mass audience anywhere, and no single appearance on a single show will do. The key message –the war can be lost in Iraq, with slaughter on a scale approaching Rwanda and immediate effects on American security—is not getting through or not being believed. Part of the problem is that in a shattered media environment, the Administration and the Pentagon, as well as GOP leadership on the Hill, are not making the case day-in-and-day-out. “Making the case” doesn’t mean the Sunday shows, by the way, or an op-ed here or there.
It means the Today Show, the O’Reilly Factor, Lou Dobbs and Jay Leno.
It means the Weekly Standard and the New Republic, and every paper’s D.C. bureau chief.
And it means, most definitely, the blogs, and not just on conference calls that allow the list to get checked off all at once.
And it means the entire Cabinet, and the deputies, and the White House staff. Ask yourself how many of these men and women you have seen or heard discussing the war in the days since the president's speech. Where's the sales force? And that is what it is, just as Reid-Pelosi-Clinton-Obama constitutes a sales force. Only difference: They are out-selling --out-persuading-- the Administration's team. By a lot.
I asked then-Secretary Rumsfeld on May 9 of last year about the information war we are in, and whether anyone at the Pentagon really understood it and was waging it. His response:
I don't know how to answer that. First of all, the truth is, and it's embarrassing to confess this, that I suppose I work about 13 hours a day. And I'll bet you that 12 1/2, or 12 3/4 of those 13 hours a day, I spend doing things instead of thinking about how I communicate, and what the message ought to be, and fighting the enemy on their level, against their media committees, and their active efforts at disinformation. And I probably ought to spend, and we here in the Department, ought to spend more time thinking about those messages, and how we can counteract the lies, because they are enormously successful. They can put out a lie, and then we're asked the question is that true. And we can know we think it's not true, but we have to be honest, and we have to be accurate. So we then have to spend two or three days trying to find out what the truth is, before we can rebut the lie. Well, the lie's been around the world 15 times by the time we even get our boots on.
In other words, "No. Nobody's in charge."
I think the Administration is in a similar bind today vis-à-vis the American public –so harried by the press of the Beltway press that the communications team has lost sight of the fact that they cannot win with old media, period. They need to focus on new media with audiences open to the message.
In the last election the GOP base stayed loyal to the president and the GOP. One major reason for that loyalty has to be that these voters get their information –detailed, reliable, persuasive information—from sources willing to argue the case for victory, and who do so day in and day out. Whether that is Rush or Sean Hannity, Powerline or the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke or Charles Krauthammer on Special Report in response to serious questions from Brit Hume, or a dozen columnists at Townhall.com, the audience that is listening or reading closely is supporting the idea of victory in Iraq (even as they separate from the Administration on other issues.) Repetition matters, as does the appeal through non-traditional channels.
The Bush/Cheney political staff knew the importance of these channels in 2004, and used them to reach not just the base but the center paid off in persuaded voters.
In 2006, the base stayed tuned in, and turned out, but the center did not hold or stayed home. The left had co-opted the various message senders, and the result was a loss of control of the Congress.
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?
I watched today as Secretary of State used a prime media opportunity to dispatch Michelle Kwan with Undersecretary Hughes on a goodwill mission to China. Fine. Wonderful stuff. I really do appreciate Ms. Kwan’s willingness to help.
But this is not serious, and it may even be defeating the delivery of the crucial messages intended to persuade not just Americans but the world about the stakes.
If, as the president has argued, and as I believe, the war –in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia and across the globe—is the central calling of our time, then the men and women in charge of winning it need to embrace the very difficult task of persuading a public bombarded every day with a contrary argument.
Every day. In many places. With passion.
One final question: Does the United States, more than five years into the war, operate an internet site where the president’s speeches and the other crucial arguments about the war by commentators who genuinely understand the stakes are translated on an immediate basis into Arabic and Farsi? If not, why not?
If the American public’s opinion matters, how much more the opinions of those in the Muslim world we seek to engage on our side?
You cannot win an information war unless you engage in it. And we are not engaged.
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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