Managing the Message: We Showed You Ours, Now You Show Us Yours

Cassandra inspired me to provide the next installment in this series after I read her fantastic introduction to why language matters so much in politics.

The latest thing we're hearing out of the Administration is that opponents to the Administration's eminent troop increase slated for Iraq should come forward and lay their plans on the table. This clip from the Daily Show last night (my primary source for all things politics, incidentally) while long and at times not entirely on point (though quite funny nonetheless) combines a nice montage of Administration officials exhorting Members of Congress and others to "bring forth yer Plans". Then, again much more succinctly and humorously than I can do so here, John Stewart politely reminds them of the many other plans (The ISG Report and the Levin-Reed Amendment specifically) which the Administration has rejected out of hand.

But this is about Managing the Message, and in this instance, I think the Administration is trying to paint the picture that they have studied all options and have done all of the heavy lifting and that this troop increase is the only viable alternative which is left after months and months of studying the problem. In fact, I'd argue that the rhetoric we are currently hearing provides an interesting explanation for why the President waited so long after the elections to announce his plan.

It now seems that he wanted to give the exercise of determining the "New Way Forward" a sense of exhaustiveness that only comes from multiple months of careful study, without official public comments. It also probably explains why the actual plan was so relentlessly leaked by an Administration which usually has a very tight lid on the whole leaking thing. They needed to test the waters a little bit without destroying the appearance of "heavy consultation" with the generals and such. Now that the plan is out there, they're happy to pretend as if there are no other alternatives, and that they are the only ones trying to LEAD in this uncomfortable situation, rather than take pot-shots from the outside, like they implicitly accuse Congress of doing currently.