Bush tries to stay afloat

The Washington Post reports on the administration's strategy to weather what White House advisers are calling "the darkest days of the Bush presidency."

The strategy: emphasize the postive.

Apparently, according to the WaPo, the announcement of a new Fed chairman was the first wave of a rollout over the next several days to keep the president's agenda in the forefront. The next wave will be to stress the importance of the Iraq war as the central front in the War on Terror.

Anticipating a barrage of criticism when the death toll hits 2,000, Bush will try to put the sacrifice in perspective by portraying the Iraq war as the best way to keep terrorists from striking the United States again, the official said. He will make the same case in another speech Friday in Norfolk.

Although Bush has made this case often, aides hope the public will be more receptive in the aftermath of the apparently successful referendum vote for a new Iraqi constitution, whose official results will be announced this week. The White House also sees the economy as one of the few parcels of safe political land these days.

Perhaps the president is forgetting that his determination to conflate Iraq with the War on Terror is what got him into this mess in the first place.

And, the economy? With inflation nipping at the heels of families who have seen their spending and saving power decimated over the past four years, he is going to emphasize the economy? With gas prices hovering near three bucks a gallon?

I suppose you could call lies and delusion a positive communication strategy. I wouldn't call it that, but I won't be the one to tell the president that he can't. I'll leave that to the junior staffers he has been terrorizing over the last few weeks as he watches his presidency tumble into the ashbin of history.