Schwartzkopf Again - Eric Boysen

Schwartzkopf Again - Eric Boysen writes:

Let's see..............the president's father and America's favorite real life general are hunting buddies. Colin Powell finally folds up his "let diplomacy work" tent, dumb ol' George W. delivers a masterful State of the Union address, and the next thing you know ol' Stormin' Norman's off the reservation. Hmmmmmmmm..............it just gets curiouser and curiouser, don't it?

Off the reservation? Or playing a convenient "Good Cop?"

Back up.

Whether as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or as Secretary of State, Colin Powell has always played the role of the dissenting dove. It really doesn't matter if he actually believes in the material, it's his job. He serves at the direction of the president. There's always a dove in the administration; there has to be. Otherwise, it's the Kremlin, not the White House.

It's a principle of almost any type of human interaction: Want to make a sour dish? Add a dash of sugar. Want to interrogate a particularly nasty perp? Give 'em a good cop. In theatrical lighting - wanna emphasize a bright spot? Use cool backlighting. Want to emphasize the yang? Toss in some Yin.

No, it's not new-agey twaddle - it's a key factor of human interaction; contrasts emphasize.

Leave aside the whole aspect of (I suspect) the entire Potemkin "dove" movement within the administration, drawing the left out to be recognized.

Eric moves to a great point here:

Now that Secretary Powell has thrown down the gauntlet, lost patience, and had his little tantrums right on script for the benefit of the liberal media he's been leading around by the nose, (not to mention the State Department, Democrats in Congress, European ninnies, etc.) out trots Norman Schwartzkopf to pick up the leash.

After Stormin' Norman takes Matt and Katie and the rest of the Katzenjammer Kids out for a few laps around the Maypole, he's bound to have an epiphany himself. Eureka!! Then maybe we'll hear from John McCain, and so on and so on. This is how to control the media in wartime. It's textbook.

The irony is the liberals in general and the Democrats in Congress either don't recognize their own techniques or cannot let on that they do. This is why they sent out not the head coach, the team captain, or even the pitcher to respond to Bush's State of the Union, but the guy selling popcorn in the upper decks of Washingstonia. Ideologically, the Democrats can't support the administration; politically, they can't oppose the administration. So they sent out the mascot.

This is a very accomplished and media savvy administration about to unleash the dogs of war. It's a certainty they have as much control of the news cycle by now as is humanly possible. It would be criminally stupid not to have control of it.

Great points.

Posted by Mitch at January 31, 2003 07:07 PM