Meanwhile, Laura seems to be screwing up the war marketing effort.
First lady: Turn off TVs on 9/11 cnn.com
But but but. . . the handlers have these great camera angles all set up
"From a marketing point of view," said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, "you don't introduce new products in August."
A centerpiece of the strategy, White House officials said, is to use Mr. Bush's speech on Sept. 11 to help move Americans toward support of action against Iraq, which could come early next year.
"Everybody felt that was a moment that Americans wanted to hear from him," said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser. Sept. 11 will also be a time, Mr. Rove said, "to seize the moment to make clear what lies ahead."
Toward that end, in June the White House picked Ellis Island in New York Harbor, not Governors Island, as the place where President Bush is to deliver his Sept. 11 address to the nation. Both spots were considered, White House advisers said, but the television camera angles were more spectacular from Ellis Island, where the Statue of Liberty will be seen aglow behind Mr. Bush.
"We had made a decision that this would be a compelling story either place," said Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. "We sent a team out to go and look and they said, `This is a better shot,' and we said O.K." nytimes.com |
