My brother wants to know why Bush didn't apologize to anyone on Arabic language TV.
From today's Chicago Tribune:
"I believe that the politics of contrition is for losers," said Scott Reed, a Republican consultant who was the campaign manager for Bob Dole in 1996. "The American people look to their commander in chief to be optimistic, forward-looking and strong, and Bush is not going to get caught in this trap. Nobody in the world thinks the commander in chief of the United States is in charge of managing a specific prison in Iraq."
This may or may not be true about Americans/their commander in chief/etc. but it does overlook the key fact that it might be also nice to influence other people elsewhere in the world as well. Bush is quick to claim that others Hate Our Freedom when it is no doubt more accurate to say that They Hate Our Smug Arrogance and Self Centeredness.
Fred Kaplan writing in SLATE:
It seems the president is allergic not just to the words but to the concept of responsibility that underlies them. To apologize would be to admit he'd made a mistake. And mistakes are forbidden in the Bush White House.
His resistance is particularly unfortunate here. An Iraqi who watched the two American generals apologize, and then watched the American president fail to, would certainly notice the difference—and might, understandably, wonder about the officers' significance and sincerity.
It is not just the press that's hung up on the S word. It has been claimed that Arabs like to hear it from those who have done wrong, but my guess is this would be true of any people who had been senselessly humiliated by the world's superpower
Too often, the president began a sentence with the words, "People in Iraq must understand ..." or "The Iraqi people must understand …" or "People in the Middle East must understand … ." He probably didn't mean it but, to an Iraqi audience, these phrases may seem insistent, overbearing, even autocratic, coming from the man who is currently occupying their country.
This is public relations 101, no? There are multiple audiences. An oil company might need to assure stockholders that they are searching for oil in new areas while simultaneously assuring others that they have high environmental concerns.
I'm sure that, as Kaplan suggests, U.S. voters (the red state folks, anyway) will find it re-assuring that Bush went on Arabic language news and spoke some platitudes and that's fine but incredibly insufficient. Couldn't there be a way to accomplish BOTH goals...appease the people who we claim will be a soverign government any minute AND toss a bone to those here at home? Well sure but there has to be a willingness to believe that such a thing is necessary or desirable and so far that doesn't seem to be the case.
Corporations know that bad PR is bad for the bottom line. The Bush White House has asked for another $25 Billion for Iraq just to tide us over until the next fiscal year begins.
