by Jerry Politex, Bush Watch, 10/29/01 (www.bushwatch.com)

Two Friday's ago we learned that the Pentagon hired a PR firm to spin the war. Or as it was reported in the San Jose Mercury News, "to help it explain U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan to global audiences." Rendon Group, the firm in question, previously was used by the CIA to write good things about the Iraqui rebels. According to Con Vaitas, when Kuwait was overrun by the Iraquis back in 1990, another such firm was hired by Poppy Bush, which enabled him to tell us more than once that "a young Kuwaiti girl got up in Congress and gave a tearful report of seeing Saddam's goons throwing babies out of humidicribs [Whatever those are.] so they could take the equipment back to Iraq." Con Vaitsas went on to report that "it was later discovered that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador and hadn't been anywhere near Kuwait at the time. It was made up with the assistance of an American public relations company." If Con Vaitsas is correct, let's hope Bush, Jr.'s Pentagon PR firm turns out to be a bit more trustworthy.

According to a Guardian story, "the agency will monitor the news media in 79 countries, recommend ways the US military can counter opposition messages and improve public communications." All this for $3,500 a day. But one warning flag is that those working in the Washington PR firm used to work for Congress, the White House, and the Clinton administration, hardly new blood. And the first fruit of the deal that the pubic has been made aware of seemed more like a publicity stunt to give anthrax-frightened citizens something to do. Last Thursday the Pentagon announced a contest. That's right, send in your one-page description of an idea for "defeating difficult targets, conducting protracted operations in remote areas, and developing countermeasures to weapons of mass destruction" by December 23, according to the press release. "Soliciting ideas from any Tom, Dick & Goofball for possible defense contracts," was "disconcerting" to the the NYT's tart-tongued Maureen Dowd. Or as Bush Watcher Ruth wrote, "Now we enter Phase Three: the Thoroughly Modern Inter-Active War! A National Contest sponsored by Yours Truly, The Gummint! Quick! Get your entry form here!

But it's not just the Pentagon that's out of touch. The tatters of what used to be the U.S. Information Agency is now part of the State Department and its being run by Charlotte Beers, an advertising exec with no experience in government or foreign policy. Her idea of getting out the word about America is using the Internet, but the Internet only reaches 1% of the citizens of the key Middle Eastern countries, according to Richard Holbrooke. Nothing seems to be working. The Voice of America is reported to be "barely audible" with an audience of 2%, and few, if any, Afghani's are even aware of the messages we're broadcasting to them from slow-moving planes directly overhaead, according to the BBC.

On a more positive note, yesterday's NYT reports that, perhaps as a result of Rendon Group's advice, American officials including Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld have begun to appear in interviews on previously-shunned Al Jazeera television, the CNN of the Arab world. "The American views — always avowing that the United States has nothing against Muslims or Islam — have received prominent play. But in terms of content and impact, the interviews have often fallen flat," because what American representatives are saying on Arab television and in Arab papers doesn't jibe with what the Arab audience is learning elsewhere. A Cairo professor notes, "America has failed miserably in marketing their war to the Arabs. How can they convince the Arabs of anything while Israel's American-made tanks are occupying the Palestinian territories?" With only Al Jazeera actually reporting from Afghanistan and the BushAdmin filtering all the Afghan war news that ends up being reported in American magazines and newspapers, Arabs are suspicious of what the American representatives are saying, reports the NYT, even though "the American views have received prominent play."

Perhaps what is needed is a more coordinated and more realistic effort through an office of "public diplomacy" to oversee communication efforts, an office like FDR's Office Of War Information, Eisenhower's USIA, or Clinton's special communications office for Serbia, which helped to defeat Milosevic. Holbrooke suggests that such an office could be run out of the White House, because that's the only place "that can coordinate -- by which I mean direct -- public affairs activities of State, Defense, Justice, CIA, AID and others toward the Muslim world." On the negative side, however, like so much else in Junior's administration, the idea behind such an office would most likely be not be to provide news, but propaganda, with techniques honed by his father and his father's administration during the Gulf War.

In 1991, advertising professor Eugene Secunda wrote, "Operation Desert Storm allowed only one view of the battle: the one authorized by the military. Like travelers led from their buses by tour guides, the TV crews were given an opportunity to videotape the 'panoramic vista' before them, and then were whisked to the next officially authorized destination. In the aftermath of the war with Iraq, strategic planners, preparing for future wars, are unquestionably examining the lessons gleaned from this triumphant experience. One of the most important lessons learned is the necessity of mobilizing strong public support, through the projection of a powerful and tightly controlled PR program, with particular effort directed toward the realization of positive news coverage." This is exactly what the BushAdmin is doing and there's no indication that a White House office of "public diplomacy" would shift the information output from propaganda to news.

"We need to do a better job to make sure that people are not confused as to what this is about," says Sec. Rumsfeld. But as Norman Solomon writes, "It's typical of warmakers to claim that the biggest problems lie with others' faulty perceptions rather than their own deadly orders. But no amount of PR wizardry can change the cold facts....Though you wouldn't know much about it from watching TV news or skimming the front pages, large numbers of Afghans -- many of them children and elderly -- are facing the likelihood of starvation because the bombing has forced recurrent halts to the movement of food-aid trucks from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Concern is growing among humanitarian aid workers that about 100,000 people are now in imminent peril. By winter, the number could be in the millions. Meanwhile, on television, we see footage of air-dropped meals that amount to no more than 1 percent of what's needed to prevent people from starving. That's called good PR."

(c) 2001 by Bush Watch (www.bushwatch.com). May be reprinted with linked attribution.

The Pentagon cast a wide net on Thursday for bright ideas on thwarting terrorism, seeking to pick the brains of just about everyone from tinkerers in their garages to big corporations worldwide. — Reuters, Oct. 25, 2001

To: The Pentagon
From: Arthur M., garage tinkerer
Re: Antiterrorism ideas

Find out if Osama bin Laden watches "Friends." If he does, offer him a guest role in a November sweeps episode, including several spicy scenes with Courteney Cox Arquette. During rehearsal week, gradually replace the entire cast with look-alikes from the C.I.A. On the night of the taping, they pounce.

Tell CNN, Fox News, etc. to stop broadcasting that scary text that moves across the bottom of the TV screen. This will come as a relief to most people, but will really tick off the terrorists. When they phone the networks to complain, use caller I.D. to track them to their secret hideout.

At the airport, when the ticket agent asks security questions — "Did you pack your bags yourself," etc. — have him or her slip in a trick question: "Do you have a favorite cave in Kandahar?" If yes, pounce.

Place advertisements in major newspapers that read: "Secret disguise kit: $29.95." Little does the terrorist know that there's a super- micro-mini-homing device hidden inside the fake nose!

Drive around a suspected terrorist's house in a sound truck, blasting the song "I'm Too Sexy" at full volume for 24 hours. When the terrorist comes out of the house to tell you to turn it down, pounce.

At supermarkets across the country, have one really short checkout line with a sign above it that says, "Express lane — Evildoers only."

Solicit antiterrorism ideas from ordinary citizens, tinkerers, etc. If any of the entrants seem to know "too much," pounce.

More than one conservative pundit called Bush's speech to the joint session of Congress last week his "Pearl Harbor" speech and placed it among the greatest speeches ever made by an American president. I said, "Bush gave the best speech of his career, bar none. (see below) He was everything a speech writer would want his speaker to be: passionate, articulate, firm, and confident." I stand by that statement. But as I mentioned to one loyal Bush Watch reader who wrote in about the speech (here), "I didn't write that [Bush's] analysis of the situation was correct." Why was Bush able to give such a speech, a speech that was highly praised on both sides of the aisle and led to a 91% approval rating by those Americans polled? Naturally, the speech writer deserves some credit. Also, the situation that Bush found himself in, a human being serving as the symbolic head of a great nation facing a severe crisis, allowed just about everyone to cut him some slack. But there was more to it, there was a perfect mesh between the focus of the speech, warnings, threats, and promises of retribution, and his own personality.

As more than one person I've spoken with since Friday night has observed, this was the first Bush speech they've ever seen that came across as deeply felt, the first speech that seemed to come out of the man's character. While Bush's intention with the speech was clearly to assure Americans that we will come out of this crisis because we're strong and we have the will to do so, his focus was to tell the American people what he planned to do about the attacks of Tuesday:

"Tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban:

¶Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land.

¶Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned.

¶Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country.

¶Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and hand over every terrorist and every person in their support structure to appropriate authorities.

¶Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps so we can make sure they are no longer operating.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.

...Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.

From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

As Bush delivered lines of warning and lines of dire threat, he looked serious and firm, and appeared totally in the moment. In other parts of the speech, talking about the nuts and bolts of government, such as his appointment of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge as Homeland czar, the air leaked out of the speech, the light went out of his eyes, and he took on his usual role of tepid speechmaker. He even took time out and broke the tone of the speech with a wink to his wife. (Look, Laura, I can do it!) But when he talked about threatening people with death and countries with retribution, he was, as we said in our story last Friday, "in the zone." And he has changed, as the following report on the Bush-Gore debates from the March 21, 2000 Wall Street Journal indicates ( more dated indications are provided after this piece):

"Strategists in both parties see another potential danger for Mr. Bush at a time when Democrats are attacking him as ill-prepared for the Oval Office: The Texas governor has on at least two occasions left the impression he takes a cavalier attitude toward opponents of capital punishment. In a televised debate in California this month, Mr. Bush grinned and chuckled audibly as a questioner recounted reports that lawyers for some defendants in Texas capital cases had slept during their trials....Mr. Bush, in an interview, offers no explanation for his demeanor during the debate question on the death penalty. But he bristles at the suggestion that he has regarded the subject lightly."

In other words, Bush now has greater control over socially acceptable outward signs of emotion when he talks about governments killing people. He doesn't grin and chuckle any more. He's able to look stern. --Politex, 9/23/01

"George W. would be plagued by a serious drinking problem for many years. On another occasion when he was 26 [1972], the Post records, "he returned home inebriated one night to his parents’ home in Washington - with his then-teenage brother Marvin in tow - and plowed his car into a neighbor’s garbage can, dragging it down the street. When his father asked to see him, George W. challenged him to go ‘mano a mano’ outside." The situation was defused without fisticuffs." The New American, 9/13/99

"At a Dallas restaurant in April 1986, according to "First Son," the Bush biography by Dallas Morning News reporter Bill Minutaglio, he spotted columnist Al Hunt of the Wall Street Journal, who had recently predicted that Jack Kemp, and not then-Vice President George Bush, would be the 1988 GOP presidential nominee. George W. Bush, clearly sloshed, according to Hunt, approached the columnist and, in front of Hunt's young son, called him a 'no-good fucking sonovabitch.' " --Salon, 7/7/00.

"He does seem to have a mean side. This can be seen in the chilling relish he displayed in an interview with Talk magazine [in 1999] when imitating death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker's voice ("'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me'").... But my view is that, like most recovered alcoholics, he's still got some growing up to do." --Cary Tennis, 7/26/01

"You know those fawning "ditto-head" callers that populate conservative talk shows like Rush Limbaugh's each day, defending their generally selfish views of the world? It turns out that they're Geoege W. Bush's target constituency. A new poll last week indicated that Bush held a double-digit lead over Gore with white males in their thirties and forties, which happen to make up the majority of the listeners tuned to the political raido shows. That would explain why Bush was willing to travel over seven hours by plane to and from Austin to New York on Saturday to give a ten-minute speech at the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts' conference in New York. Yet, the evening before, he couldn't make a 200 mile hop from Austin to Dallas to talk to the 400 members attending the National Conference of Black Mayors, although he had been invited to attend months in advance. Educated, professional black males apparently do not fit the profile. What do we know about the most typical Bush voters, the political talk show listeners,...a testosterone-heavy crowd under 54..., and what would this say about the tone and temprement of a Bush presidency?..." --Politex, 5/1/00

This evening before a joint session of Congress, George W. Bush gave the best speech of his career, bar none. He was everything a speech writer would want his speaker to be: passionate, articulate, firm, and confident. He made it clear that he was in the war against terrorism for the long haul, and so were we. He made non-negotiable demands upon the Taliban to turn over all terrorists, not just Bin Laden, and warned every country that harbors and supports terrorists to expect the full force of the American will to come down upon them. He celebrated the diversity of America, taking great care to defend the rights of American Muslims and Islamics. He praised the American people for their strength and fortitude. He put the nations of the world on alert in the war against terrorism, saying you are either for us or against us. That's what Bush said this evening, Thursday, September 20, 2001.

President Bush said, "''The United States will be firm with terrorists. We will not make concessions.... If we find states supplying money, weapons, training, identification, documents, travel, or safe haven for terrorists, we will respond. Our aim is to demonstrate to these countries that supporting terrorism is not cost-free .... We will bring terrorists to justice. We will ... identify, track, apprehend, prosecute, and punish terrorists. Terrorism is crime, and terrorists must be treated as criminals.'' This is what Bush's father said in November of 1988. As Jeff Jacoby wrote today in the "Boston Globe,"Like Ronald Reagan before him and Bill Clinton after, Bush did little to stop international terror. The result of that failure was to convince Islamist fanatics that America was weak and gutless, and to feed the audacity that led to the most devastating terrorist attack in US history." In other words, it's one thing to stand before Congress and take in wave after wave of applause. It's another thing to carry out the hard work of making your dream scenario for a lasting freedom come true. The difference between father and son, however, is the loss of over 7,000 lives in the New York and Washington terrorist attacks. We need to hope that Bush will succeed. We need to hope that words will be translated into deeds. We need to hope that the right deeds are carried out. For that, we'll have to wait. What is crystal clear, however, is that Bush needs to succeed, because if he doesn't, we will share in his failure, and the penalties will be severe.

While Bush's speech writer had him say, "We will not tire. We Will not falter. We Will not fail," and he read it perfectly and with great feeling, the less impassioned parts of the speech dealt with the nuts and bolts of reality, like Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge being selected as the administrator to lead the fight against terrorism. This announcement received one of the largest bursts of applause in the entire speech, and we're not sure why. We will reserve judgment for the time being. All in all, however, the point of the speech was not to deal with the specifics of the undertaking, but with the calling of the nation to arms and the articulation of a vision of success, and in this respect George W. Bush succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. --Politex, 9/20/01