"VICTORY": IT'S THE NEW "FREEDOM"

Apparently President Bush has come under the sway of a political researcher who has instructed him to say "victory" a lot when speaking of Iraq. Not to admit mistakes or to adjust any of a series of manifestly counterproductive policies, but to say "victory" more.

Despite the president's oft-stated aversion to polls, Dr. Feaver was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented the administration with an analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believed it would ultimately succeed.

That finding, which is questioned by other political scientists, was clearly behind the victory theme in the speech and the plan, in which the word appears six times in the table of contents alone, including sections titled "Victory in Iraq is a Vital U.S. Interest" and "Our Strategy for Victory is Clear."

You know, if Bush had spent a fraction as much effort planning for the post-war occupation of Iraq as he has in managing the American public's perception of it, things might not be so deep in the shitter.

In other news, Victor Davis Hanson was seen pouting in a corner in the Rose Garden over the fact that President Bush has a new favorite pet pointy-headed academic. (Try giving John McCain a call, Vic, maybe he's looking for someone to massage his feet while comparing him to Ajax!)