That was the thinking about the selling of the invasion of Iraq in 2002. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," Chief of Staff Andrew Card said in explaining why the president did not, until he'd finished his summer vacation, begin to sound loudly the drums of war.

The beat would begin only after Labor Day, curiously timed to coincide with the midterm congressional campaigns that Karl Rove, master manipulator of the president's political game, framed not as a referendum on war or peace — but on war, or else.

How appropriate it is that President Bush is now forced to leave his Texas redoubt in August, and with such urgency, to market not a new product but an old and discredited one. He turns up before the usual friendly audiences in the usual friendly states. The speeches and comments the president makes enrapture Bush's core supporters. They leave much of the rest of us feeling like we're watching a television series that's gone stale.

Bush reiterates the falsehood that the Iraq adventure is a result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a link disproved by just about every official investigation and, at long last, disbelieved by much of the public. A majority now says the Iraq War was a mistake. In the latest Gallup poll, nearly two-thirds say operations in Iraq have made us less safe from terrorism.

On this deja-vu-all-over-again tour, the president reprises what the White House must believe are its greatest hits. "Iraq is a central front in the war on terror," he told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Salt Lake City. "Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war," Bush said at Fort Bragg.

That was another occasion when the White House, troubled by sagging support for the war and in need of a tonic for queasy congressional Republicans, took the presidential motorcade out for a public-relations spin. The Fort Bragg extravaganza, despite the familiar props of military men and women in uniform, did not boost the president's political ratings nor the public's patience with war.

For that, you cannot blame Cindy Sheehan. The now-famous war protester whose son was killed in Iraq last year was no household name back in June. Bush had a freer forum in which to make his sales pitch. The public rejected it.

And this, really, is the president's problem — and the nation's. The White House persists in treating the Iraq situation as a marketing challenge and not as a policy debacle in need of urgent repair. The hope is that if the same catchy jingles are repeated often enough, the people will start buying again.

But you can't sell a lousy product. And the packaging of this war has changed so many times that people are confused and disbelieving.

Those in the ad business know the trick of the sell is to give consumers a reason to believe, or "RTB," in a product. You must be convinced that this new shampoo will make your hair shinier or thicker or bouncier. If the shampoo doesn't live up to its claims, you'll stop buying.

This is what has happened with the president's Iraq policy.

Americans unwrapped the package and found inside nothing resembling what they were sold. They see carnage in the Baghdad streets and terrorist strikes in London. They hear that the emerging Iraq is a loose collection of warring ethnic and religious factions, its political leaders bent on enshrining regional separation in its constitution. Despite the president's claims, the government that is taking shape in Iraq is nothing like the federation of these United States.

It is likely that no American knows quite what to do now. But it's a good bet they know what they want from the White House. Not a huckster, but a president.

© 2005 Daily Camera

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