Tue May 25, 2004 06:41 PM ET
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. administration sought on Tuesday to project a unified, optimistic view of its plan to hand over power to an interim government in Iraq, even as President Bush faced criticism over a strategy many find lacking in crucial details.
In a televised speech on Monday, Bush tried to convince Americans he had a workable plan for transforming Iraq from a war-torn occupied nation into a beacon of democratic reform for the whole Middle East region.
His remarks, and a U.N. draft resolution backed by the United States and Britain, quickly came under fire from Democrats, European leaders and the American press barely a month before the June 30 deadline for transferring power to a caretaker Iraqi government.
Memo from Karl Rove to POTUS (That's you, Mr. President):
Iraq handover strategy
Oddly enough, the big announcement about tearing down Abu Ghraib has failed to grab the world's interest. Maybe we shouldn't have explained that we were building a new prison first. Probably it was a bad idea to emphasize that the facility would have more outlets and high-speed internet access. Water under the bridge, sir. Water. Bridge.
In fact, the whole Iraq thing is looking ever more liquid, if you take me meaning, which is why we here at the Genius Farm have selected the slogan for the handover of power in Iraq: "Time to Cut and Run." Americans love to cut and run. We divorce our spouses, default on our credit card debt, leave lover's beds in the middle of the night, and move to the suburbs. Heck, this whole country is founded on the idea of upping stakes and moving westward to get away from whatever unholy mess we'd made for ourselves back East. The only part of the Vietnam War people enjoyed was the running away at the end, and our strategy of dumping Afghanistan like the ugly girl at the prom has worked like a charm. Does anybody even remember that we invaded Haiti a few years ago? Heck no! Why? Because we cut and ran! We ran like a scalded cat, like greased lightning, like a nuclear-powered homing pigeon with a roman candle stuck up its butt. We skedaddled. And what happened? No messy casualties, no recriminations, nothing anybody cares about except some poverty, corruption, brutality, all of which - and this is the important part - occurred out of sight of the TV news cameras.
Therein lies the key. We can be out of Iraq faster than Martha Stewart got out of her imclone stock -- As long as we have something else to put on TV. It has to be visually arresting, exciting enough to dominate water-cooler conversations, and it has to last until the first Tuesday in November.
Not to be too crude about this, Mr. President, but you have two very attractive daughters who just graduated from college. Combine that fact with the enormous success of so-called Reality TV, and the possibilities are endless, from "Who wants to marry the President's daughter?" to "Survivor: Camp David." If we can get the Osbournes on board, "Celebrity Rehab" would be great. Think about it. They've already volunteered to work on your campaign, right? What could be more helpful than providing the eye candy that keeps American from noticing the hole where our Middle East policy used to be? If they balk, just remind them "there is no I in B-U-S-H."
Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product.
The rest is the fakey part.
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