Bush's Feaver Fever

Those ever resourceful folks over at a REAL journalistic resource, Editor & Publisher claims that people in the know, know who Bush's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq penner is..At least in large part. The person most responsible's name is Peter D. Feaver, a 43-year-old Duke University political scientist(I always chuckle at the term 'political scientist')

Let's keep this brief, as The Times is sure to have lots to say about this in tomorrow's edition.

Just a quick teaser:

Feaver, the Times’ Scott Shane writes, "was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented to administration officials their analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believe it would ultimately succeed."

This past June, the Washington Post observed that Feaver's studies had already "helped influence the White House thinking."

But Christopher F. Gelpi, Feaver's colleague at Duke and co-author of the research on American tolerance for casualties, tells the Times on Sunday that this week's 35-page report "is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency. 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." Dr. Gelpi said he had not discussed the document with Dr. Feaver, who declined to be interviewed by the Times.

E&P has learned that Feaver is on leave from Duke until at least August 2006. According to his curriculum vitae, obtained by E&P, he describes himself as "Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, National Security Council Staff."

The study he did with Feaver, along with Jason Reifler, challenged the post-Vietnam view that Americans will only support military operations if casualties are low. Rather, they declared, based on a study of recent polls, that public acceptance for the Iraq war depended much more on feeling that the war was a worthy cause--and even more, a belief that the war was likely to end well.

(much more at link)

As if anyone thought that the document, replete with a speech was really about 'winning' on the ground in post-war Iraq.

That seems laughable. It would be if it wasn't so tragic.

This is group-think at its worst. All that the White House has to do to turn around public opinion concering Iraq is to keep too many of OUR guys from getting killed. This will magically metamorphose public opinion from dour to happy.

These guys are obviously deluded. I think that most Americans would support the war if there was real progress being made. It's not so simple as a body count.

This one-dimensional type of thinking is very clearly outlined in an absolutely terrific book by Jeff Schmidt titled: Disciplined Minds Amazon link.

How could these guys not land on Team Bush? Bush must love the simplicity of the message.

Stay tuned for the NYT piece tomorrow. It could be a winner..Unlike the PR ploy: National Strategy for Victory in Iraq ;)