in case you didn’t hear him the first time

Rumsfeld, who has become a lightning rod for everyone who wants to believe that the Bush administration is interested only in gaining political advantage from talking about the war against Islamic extremism,*** repeats exactly the same message he sent the other day:

Today, some think that World War II and the Cold War were black-and- white affairs: good versus evil. But there were always those who thought that we should retreat within our borders.

In an effort to avoid repeating the carnage of World War I, much of the Western world tried to appease the growing threats in Europe and Asia in the years before World War II. Those who warned against the rise of Nazism, fascism and communism were often ridiculed and ignored.

The enemy we face today is different from the enemies we have faced in the past, but its goal is similar: to impose its fanatical ideology of hatred on the rest of the world.

In speaking to our veterans, I suggested several questions to guide us during this struggle against violent extremists:

• With the growing lethality and availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that vicious extremists can somehow be appeased?

• Can we really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?
• Can we truly afford to pretend that the threats today are simply “law enforcement” problems rather than fundamentally different threats requiring fundamentally different approaches?

• Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world’s troubles?

I’m out in my corner of rural paradise saying goodbye to the summer, and with my dial-up connection it’s too painstaking to follow all the various reactions to the administration’s new attempt to explain the war against Islamo-fascism. Yes, it’s a PR campaign. So what?

As anyone who has ever tried to launch anything—be it a product, a star, a political campaign, a new venture, good works, etc—in our media-drenched world knows, PR is the only way to get your message out, whether it’s a worthy message or an unworthy one.

Only liars, con artists, hypocrites, and fools pretend that worthy messages somehow sell themselves and that there exist “authentic” talents, products, and producers that are somehow unpolluted by our 24/7 commercial, advertising-drenched, hyped-up world. We live in the world of PR, and, yes, every government and every politician uses it. The only difference between them is that some use it effectively and some ignore it—at their peril.

Anyway, PR offensive or not, Rumsfeld’s message was, in a way, kick-started by Tony Blair earlier this summer, in an important speech ignored by the American MSM, which I’ve talked about before and which you should read—in a way, it’s a kinder, gentler, more expansive, and more politically correct version of Rumsfeld’s worldview.

I’m deeply pessimistic about this message getting through to “opinion,” as Tony Blair has called the media elite that carry the message of those who stubbornly refuse to see, or who are to scared to look. Their skepticism is on display below—and two of the four people (Anderson Cooper and John Roberts) involved in the media conversation reprinted below just came back from a month spent on the frontline of the war (Hezbollah vs. Israel) against Islamic extremism that Blair and Rumsfeld are talking about.

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For the record, I’m copying and pasting the discussion among the correspondents on Anderson Cooper 360 last night as an indication of the MSM’s framing of the speeches given in the last few days by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush. They see it—and explain it—as a PR offensive. Which it might be. But that doesn’t mean that the message they’re delivering isn’t important. Indeed, it is important. And the press chooses to disregard the substance of what the administration is saying.

COOPER: Well, President Bush compares the war in Iraq to the fight against fascism. It is the new talking points and strategy from the White House, linking the war to the war on terror. The question is, is anyone buying it?

Plus, he was kidnapped in Gaza, didn’t know if he would ever see his family again. Now a freelance cameraman is free and safe. And he says he’s not angry at his captors — my interview with him and his wife when 360 returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The war in Iraq has lasted three years and five months now, almost as long as America’s military participation in World War II. Today President Bush drew a direct line between who we were fighting then and who our troops are fighting now. The question is, are Americans buying the comparison?

CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It’s a familiar strategy. When faced with public discontent over the Iraq war, an election on the horizon, launch a new P.R. blitz.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved.

MALVEAUX: Some of those words we’ve heard before. But now the president is testing out new themes on doubtful Americans who increasingly believe the war in Iraq is a distraction to the overall war on terror.

BUSH: You’ve seen this kind of enemy before. They are successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th Century

MALVEAUX: The president signaling to voters, this is a crucial moment in global history and not just a distant skirmish.

ROBERT DALLEK, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: This is more of the president’s use of rhetoric is more a kind of political shorthand for reaching out to American voters in the coming November elections, to speak to them in that is what will be understandable, that will generate support for the White House.

MALVEAUX: Mr. Bush also framed the war in Iraq in terms that would generate support from veterans and older Americans, people who are more likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections.

BUSH: Victory in Iraq will be difficult and it will require more sacrifice. The fighting there can be as fierce as it was at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal. And victory is as important as it was in those earlier battles.

MALVEAUX: With the five-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks days away, and the midterm elections less than two months later, the stakes are that much higher for Mr. Bush and his party, as he tries to tie the war in Iraq to Americans’ personal safety.

BUSH: We can decide to stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq and other parts of the world, but they will not decide to stop fighting us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Here to talk about the administration’s strategy, Suzanne Malveaux joins us, along with CNN’s Candy Crowley and John Roberts.

John, let’s start off with you. What is the administration trying to accomplish here?

MALVEAUX: What they’re trying to do, Anderson, is really kind of paint a picture for Americans here. They are arguing that the stakes are high, and they want people to know that. They want to say that it is beyond — beyond Iraq, that it’s more this kind of global war on terror. That if things don’t work well in Iraq, essentially they are going to fail throughout the rest of these hot spot regions. That’s the first thing.

Secondly, they’re trying to get this message out to as many people as possible, but particularly those who will be sympathetic to their message. That would be older Americans, veterans, people who are more likely to vote come those midterm elections in November. And also, more likely to vote Republican.

COOPERS: John, also, I mean, is part of this an effort by the administration to in some ways distance or immunize the president from what happens on the ground in Iraq?

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: I don’t know if that’s the case, Anderson. The big question facing the president right now, I think, in terms of this new offensive, this new P.R. offensive. Is anybody listening anymore? Republicans I talked to back in the late spring said we wish he would have done this a long time ago. That’s when he launched second offensive on Iraq, and it didn’t really do a whole lot.

So now they believe that, by and large, that people have already made up their minds about the war in Iraq, that they’re not prepared to listen to anybody, try to put a positive spin on it.

So the question is, is the president out of time here, and are people even paying any attention?

COOPER: Candy, what about this? Democrats seem to be certainly hoping the midterm elections are a referendum on the president. In the Republicans’ best scenario, what are midterm elections a referendum on?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Republicans’ best case scenario, these are individual races and not a nationalized race, because the president’s unpopular, the war in Iraq is unpopular.

And once it becomes a nationalized race, which many people — in fact, most people believe it already is, Republicans get the short stick on that. If they can somehow make this individual races, about what’s wrong in a district or what’s wrong in a state, Republicans think they can do better.

Having said that, if the territory that they have to play on is a national territory, then you will hear a lot about the war on terrorism, because when you look at the statistics over the last six months — and John’s right, they have been pretty steady — the president’s weakest point is the war in Iraq. But his strongest point — and that’s a relative term — is the war on terror. So you will hear Republicans trying to shift from Iraq to the war on terror.

COOPER: So it does immunize the president? I mean, if things continue to go bad, Candy, on the battlefield in Iraq, the impact of this is less on the president if suddenly Iraq is linked to the war on terror?

CROWLEY: Well, you know, the president doesn’t need to be immunized, because he’s not running for election. The only thing that is going to help this president is a change on the ground in Iraq, vis-a-vis the poll numbers on Iraq.

I don’t think he’s trying to immunize himself so much as get other people to go along with this.

COOPER: Suzanne, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are basically comparing critics of the war to World War II appeasers from the Nazi era. The president doesn’t say this. Why? Is this just sort of the president trying to stay above the fray?

MALVEAUX: You know, Anderson, it’s really kind of a typical good cop/bad cop scenario that you’re seeing here. It is very typical that Vice President Cheney is the one who’s going to come out with the more controversial biting statements. Rumsfeld, as well.

And President Bush can appear a little bit above it all, above the politics saying this is not about a politics. But you can be sure that, with just months away from those midterm elections, everything is political here, including what the president says.

But he can go ahead and say, well, look, I don’t question your patriotism here. I question the wisdom of your statements and your commitment to the war on terror. That is what he is hoping to really address with the American people, is to make the case that the Democrats aren’t committed to protecting the American people.

It’s a strategy that has worked in past. It’s far from clear whether it’s going to work this time around.

COOPER: And John, this appeasement language, I mean, you know, whether or not it’s true, it certainly puts the Democrats on the defensive and I guess in that way is successful.

ROBERTS: Well, it can be. It depends on how the Democrats respond to it. I mean, nobody from the Democratic side is saying let’s give Iraq to al Qaeda in hopes that they leave us alone, as they did, you know, with Czechoslovakia and Hitler prior to World War II.

But the Democrats definitely do find themselves on the defensive again, now that Rumsfeld and Cheney in particular are out there, painting them as soft on terror, saying that they want to appease the terrorists.

They’ve got to prove that they’re not going soft on terror. And so it may not be enough for them just to stand on the sidelines and watch this midterm election try to turn into a referendum on the president. Because in fact, they may — the Republicans may be somewhat successful in turning this into a referendum on the Democrats, as well.

COOPER: Candy, who is the president trying to speak to on these trips? I mean, just the Republican base?

CROWLEY: Well, it’s the base, largely of what you might call soft Republicans. It’s like any election, Anderson, and particularly midterms.

This is about who turns out. And the White House is very aware, Republicans are very aware, that there are discouraged Republicans that might not show up. So this is definitely aimed at the base to get them stirred up and want to go out, but it’s also aimed at those soft Republicans and those kind of independents that lean Republican, to say remember what this is about. Remember 9/11. These two are connected. So that’s the main audience.

COOPER: Candy, John, Suzanne, thank you.