Well, certainly this:
Growing Impatience on War Costs
Polls, Press Corps and Politicians Show Restlessness for Bush's Estimates
This year, with members of both parties in Congress urging the administration to be forthright with the American people about the way the U.S. military is burning through cash in Iraq and the reason it's in need of an infusion of billions more, the White House has said, essentially, "We'll get back to you on that in January."
January, of course, is two months after the November election, and some cynics have openly pondered whether the White House is playing political games at the expense of the military. Members of both parties have been critical.
"Surprise, surprise," Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday on CNN. "It's disingenuous. They're not leveling with the American people. They don't have one single penny for Iraq or Afghanistan next year. And it's costing us $4.6 billion a month just to keep our troops there...So why aren't they telling the American people so they can say 'we support this' ?"
Bush's 'hugely popular' meme died a deserved death after the $87 billion flop of a speech. The truth is, violent scenes on TV, service deaths and dollar costs of the war are what Americans pay attention to.
Speaking of service deaths, we know now that those respectful coffin photos are all over the net, but they received prime-time discussion on the nightly news as well.
Executives at news organizations, many of whom have protested the policy, said last night that they had not known that the Defense Department itself was taking photographs of the coffins arriving home, a fact that came to light only when Russ Kick, the operator of The Memory Hole, filed his request.
"We were not aware at all that these photos were being taken," said Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times.
Et tu, Bill?
Stories like that (and that of the war's dollar costs) are amongst the few things that can change the mind of an electorate that thinks it's already made up its mind about who to vote for. And it makes the few not paying too much attention sit up and take notice. Bush knows it, and will be forthcoming only if Congress forces him to be. But pics like this will stiffen a few spines in Congress to ask for the accounting: