It turns out that the National Security Council's, "Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," 35 page document touted by Scott McClellan as, according to
today's NYT, an unclassified, publicly accessible explanation of strategies that the administration has been pursuing in Iraq since 2003," actually originated at the computer of "Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who joined the N.S.C. staff as a special adviser in June and has closely studied public opinion on the war."
Read the article then help me in comments by finding every instance of W's, "I don't read the polls," lies.
This is my first diary, so bear with me on the flip.
Updated to note that Digby predicted this approach the day before the Bush speech.
"This is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency," said Christopher F. Gelpi, Dr. Feaver's colleague at Duke and co-author of the research on American tolerance for casualties. "The Pentagon doesn't need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion."
Why is this worth a diary? Beside the fact that the article referred to is excellent, if used adroitly I believe this can be used to portray the administration as the cruel, heartless, cynical bastards we believe them to be.
Imagine if you will campaign commercials with repeated instances of Bush saying "I don't read the polls," jusxtaposed with the fact of this document's real intention.
While sons and daughter's are dying, the President looks not for a better strategy, but for a way to better justify high casualty numbers.
Remember, the research that INSPIRED Bush to hire Feaver was designed to argue that the deaths of our soldiers need not matter to public opinion.
Update: Here is the link to a great diary from last June predicting this very thing! In that diary seesdifferent said:
"Well, there it is. Bush is never gonna admit a mistake. He is always gonna be positive, stay the course, keep adding to the published total of bozo Iraqi trainees (most of whom are only there for the employment, imho), and maybe start giving concrete benchmarks. Maybe the latter will add a little reality to the mix, who knows. But basically this new stratigery is based on image, not reality."
More Updates:
Digby, with whom I corresponded about this today, has a new post on this arguing
"I am not in the least bit surprised that the speech originated with this fellow: they are desperate to believe that he's right and all they have to do is sell victory to get their poll numbers back up.
This advisor, Peter Feaver and a partner Christopher Gelpi produced a study that purports to prove that Vietnam wasn't "lost" because of mounting casualties; it was because the American people became convinced we were losing when the political leadership became irresolute. I'm not qualified to comment on the data which I haven't seen anyway, except to say as someone who was there at the time that this is bullshit. The problem was the "credibility gap." Ordinary citizens just didn't believe a word the government said about the war after a certain point because it had been pumping the country full of horseshit happy talk for years. Nobody knew what the truth was, except that the war just seemed to go on and on forever, kids were dying in great numbers with no real progress and no real purpose.
Mr Feaver seems to believe that the country still trusts George W. Bush. But they have to be delusionary to believe they could sell a war on a "grave and gathering danger" of "a smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud" and then think that they could maintain their credibility when it turns out that there was actually --- nothing. They shot the moon and lost.
"
Editor and Publisher has a little more info on Feaver here
Cori Dauber unpacks the NYT article from her perspective as a pro-war media critic here