Recalling a banner day in the PR wars
By BARRY SAUNDERS, Staff Writer
It was, to paraphrase an old cowboy song, time to spit on the fire and call in the dogs.
That's how Democrats and the "Bush haters" we're hearing so much about must've felt about next year's presidential election when they saw President Bush alight on May 1 from that reconnaissance jet on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and give a "thumbs up" sign before declaring that the Iraq war was -- essentially -- over.
It was the ultimate photo op, with images that Republicans no doubt planned to bombard the airwaves with once the campaign started.
After all, their man was no Michael Dukakis, looking like Snoopy in a tank and oversized helmet. Republicans were ecstatic. It almost seemed that pictures of the beaming Bush would prompt one GOP operative -- talk show host G. Gordon Liddy -- to propose marriage to the president. Liddy gushed not only about Bush's manliness, but about how especially manly he appeared in his flight suit.
Bush is, to be fair, a veteran, although there is still the matter of the "lost" 15 months of his National Guard tour. But hey, let he who is without sin...right?
Striding across the deck, doing his best Duke Wayne impression, George W. basked in the glow of the sailors' approval and the flashing camera lights. Why not? It looked like the defeated Iraqis would welcome American troops with hosannas and roses strewn at their feet.
Talk about faulty intelligence. The celebrations and victory declarations came before the postwar death count surpassed the number of troops killed back when everyone acknowledged the war was still going on.
Oh, and the hosannas we expected to greet us? In many cases they were curses, the roses were bombs, and the declaration that major combat was over was, to say the least, fatally premature.
Now Bush and his administration are dissembling about how a big banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" got onto the aircraft carrier and into the TV lenses back in May.
Asked about it this week, Bush said the the crew of the Lincoln had created the celebratory banner, and that that it simply proclaimed that "their mission" -- in the Persian Gulf -- "was accomplished." Later the White House acknowledged that the sign had been approved by the presidential staff and hadn't been made on board.
Even the president's most ardent supporters must admit that it's unseemly to attempt to deflect embarrassment over his miscalculation by blaming the banner on the sailors.
Bush further stated that his White House staff members aren't "ingenious" enough to have created and placed the banner. That's absurd, since Karl Rove et al. have been hailed as geniuses for their ability to make the president appear as precisely what they want him to be.
When he landed on the Lincoln, they -- and he -- knew it would make a swell photo op, campaign poster and perhaps even Christmas card.
Not any more. Unless things improve considerably on the ground in Iraq, images of Bush at sea won't be nearly as ubiquitous during the campaign -- unless they're unfurled by Democrats.
What's that old saying? Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
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