Volume 51, Number 10 · June 10, 2004
Bush: The Dream Campaign
By Elizabeth Drew
The main message of the reelection strategy devised by Karl Rove, the President's chief political adviser, is to present Bush as a strong and successful wartime leader. The war in Iraq was expected to work in Bush's favor, and the Bush people planned to emphasize it more than any other issue. The adverse turn of events in Iraq has therefore been the greatest setback for Bush's reelection effort, and the recent revelations of torture by American troops have caused a political crisis for the President. But well before these revelations, the horrors of the 'postwar' period for American troops and the Iraqi people were seen by Bush and his team as a political misfortune. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction has also been a disaster. The public, according to the polls, finds Bush less and less convincing in his claims about Iraq. He continues to insist that the US occupation will end well—but he cannot talk away the news about Americans and Iraqis being killed every day and the horrifying pictures from Abu Ghraib prison.
Feature, 4903 words
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