A little more color for MN Johnnie!
Posted on 04/01/2007 6:23:08 AM PDT by LS
It's April Fool's Day, but this ain't funny.
The New York Times is all a-twitter about President Bush's former pollster coming out against the Iraq war and saying John Kerry was right. To the drive-by media, this is just one more way to gig Bush.
And, of course, unable (for many years now) to conduct serious political analysis, they miss the whole point, which is:
how long did Dowd oppose the war and did that opposition shape the "analysis" and polling information he gave the President?
Since 2002, at least, many of us here have been arguing that the War on Terror, then later, the "war" in Iraq were not properly propagandized or "sold." Western nations, by their very nature, are not warlike. It sounds dirty to say this, but it is a fact that westerners usually need propaganda to stir them up to sufficient levels of violence to protect themselves before it is too late. Consider only Hitler's aggression in the 1930s until Britain and France could no longer look the other way, or America's toleration of Japanese barbarities until Pearl Harbor. Iraq was never, ever a "war." It was a "theater" in the war on the terrorists. But the media immediately defined it otherwise, and we have been stuck with it.
Whether Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or the Haditha Marines, the administration has consistently been behind the curve in properly explaining these as necessary and, yes, desirable episodes in a real war where real soldiers are fighting suicidal enemies. Put more simply, the administration has failed miserably at the domestic propaganda effort.
Now we have the revelations about Mr. Dowd.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/washington/01adviser.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=washington&adxnnlx=1175431873-sJxFZSjG7niCNXqlqcxsLw)
Is this the explanation? Has Dowd been "shaping" the President's message for several years away from the words and phrases that really would translate to the public? Has he been telling President Bush that certain approaches "won't resonate?" Has he been selecting, or even altering, his own polling data so as to make certain approaches look ineffective or misguided?
Let's get this straight: George Bush is not now, nor has he ever been, guided by polls on WHAT he believes. But like any politician, he is quite flexible when it comes to the phrases he uses, and the approaches he takes to achieving his goals.
Take Abu Ghraib, for example: what if Matt Dowd had been telling President Bush early on that this was a "disaster" in the polling that he was conducting, and that the President had to condemn it and punish those responsible? What if, in fact, the American people weren't the slightest bit worked up about terrorists with panties on their heads, and in fact, favored such treatment? Or what if Dowd's analysis and numbers continued to show that the "new tone" was popular . . . when it really wasn't?
A president's pollster and his political analyst are the intelligence agents in his political army, an if one is a Quisling, it can spell disaster.
Mr. Dowd, what did you know, when did you know it, and how much did your disloyalty damage the administration---not now, but then?
Do you have that in color!!!!!
"Will of the people" sure did not stop the Democrats from filibustering the Enforcement 1st Immigration bill last year now did it?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/dowd.html
A little more color for MN Johnnie!
Bush's advisors are either idiots or treasonist. Possibly both.
Doesn't say much for the guy who employs them.
Paul Craig Roberts was a high official of some sort with the Reagan or first Bush admin. He is now a first-class lunatic. There will always be dissenters in any admin. I hope Dowd is not quite that bad.
You're right there---you have to go quite a ways to get as kookie as PCR.
This guy wasn't anything.. Bush doesn't use polls.
Dowd probably was assigned to clean the bathrooms.
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