MoDo is spot on

There are times when Maureen Dowd writes some of the most puerile, insipid crap one can find in a major news outlet. Other times, she hits the nail on the head. Today’s column is one of the latter as she takes the Administration to task for effort to “improve” the marketing of the war.

In a White House with a Fox News all-spin sensibility, officials don’t think they need to change the strategy as much as they need to change their slogan.

The overworked Bush phrase suggested “burying your head in the sand,” Steve Hinkson, political director at Luntz Research Companies, a G.O.P. public opinion firm, told The Washington Post’s Peter Baker. “The problem is that as the number of people who agree with remaining resolute dwindles, that sort of language doesn’t strike a chord as much as it once did.”

Unwilling to admit mistakes or face the urgent need to go past semantic changes in a protectorate that has fallen into a vicious civil war, in which Americans are merely referees and targets, the White House is falling back on marketing. Just as Andy Card rolled out the war as a marketing event, the Bush team now thinks that all it needs to do is come up with a catchy and chesty new advertising pitch.

Amen sister.