On Iraq, Reality Trumps Spin

"While rarely do politicians follow academic insights, evidently the Bush administration is heeding research pioneered at the RAND Corp. showing that results and success buoy public attitudes and staunch declining support," write author Richard Sobel and media professor David Nelson. "President Bush now speaks of victory more often. ... Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld criticizes the media for focusing on the negative, particularly casualties." However, they caution, "a public relations campaign" to "sell an unpopular war is unlikely to provide long-term staying power. A rule of thumb is that public perceptions of foreign policy initiatives respond about 80 percent to policy and 20 percent to presentation. And the Iraq policy and results appear not to be changing fundamentally enough to alter this equation."