In today's news, we hear of a speech made by Donald Rumsfeld at the Army War College in which he pinpoints what's really wrong with American foreign policy:
The United States is faring poorly in its effort to counter ideological support for terrorism, in part because the government does not communicate effectively, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday. [...]Finally, Rumsfeld has quit beating himself up over his disastrous policy decisions and has instead put the blame where it truly belongs: Not enough PR."If I were grading I would say we probably deserve a `D' or a `D-plus' as a country as to how well we're doing in the battle of ideas that's taking place in the world today," Rumsfeld told his questioner. "I'm not going to suggest that it's easy, but we have not found the formula as a country" for countering the extremists' message.
This follows the lead of the Bush administration, which has proclaimed, every time there is bad news out of Iraq or their poll numbers slip a few more points, that the President is simply at fault for doing a poor job of "communicating the message". Then the Pres goes on a whirlwind tour of the country giving campaign-style speeches in front of pre-screened audiences that never ask hard questions. This naturally has a tremendously positive impact in Iraq, causing legions of insurgents to drop their weapons in dismay, but the traitorous liberal media are too busy reporting on giant explosions and mass executions to take notice.
Rumsfeld has finally come around to the rest of the administration's way of seeing things. It's a good thing he learns from his mistakes, otherwise things wouldn't be going so wonderfully well in Iraq.
