Bush Wins War of Headlines
White House plays smart politics by following Petraeus to announce drawdown.
Sept. 14, 2007 — -- The Democrats got face time on TV Thursday night in Sen. Jack Reed's response to President Bush's Oval Office address on Iraq. But it was Bush who got the headlines this morning.
Washington Post: "Bush Tells Nation He Will Begin to Roll Back Surge"
New York Times: "Bush Says Success Allows Gradual Troop Cuts"
USA Today: "Bush Ties Pullback to Success in Iraq"
ChicagoTribune.com: "Bush Vows Troop Cuts"
LATimes.com: "Bush Says He'll Start Bringing Troops Home Before Christmas"
Most headlines emphasized the troop cutback and Bush's claim of some success. Powerful words: "troop cuts … roll back … success." Democratic claims that the projected cut to pre-surge levels "does not amount to real change" were often reported only in the accompanying story and in smaller headlines such as in USA Today: "Shift not enough, Dems say."
Some stories were critical, but often they were inside the paper and harder to find. On page A6 a Washington Post "Fact Check" reported that "President Bush made a case for progress in Iraq by citing facts and statistics that at times contradicted recent government reports or his own words."
Editorial writers were, for the most part, unmoved by the president's announcement, and many retained deep doubts about his war strategy. The New York Times, a longtime critic of the war, said Bush had again refused "to recognize the truth of his failure in Iraq." Most editorial writers also agreed that it will be up to the next president to end the war. But more readers pay attention to front-page headlines than to editorials.
Veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart concedes that "they [the White House] have won the line of scrimmage. They have defined the debate." Hart and several other political observers say it was smart politics to have Gen. David Petraeus make the first announcements. Americans, they said, put more trust in a man in uniform than in a commander in chief whose credibility has been damaged.
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