There will be an important battle in the War on Terror this week. It will occur in the media. In his letter to al-Zarqawi, al-Zawahiri states:
“I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”
Last Friday, President Bush engaged in the media battle that will affect public support for the war. He referred to the attempts of his opponents to rewrite history and pointed out that they are on record supporting the war.
Senator Kennedy responded in a press release. Interestingly, the White House responded to Kennedy. This will be talked about today, which brings me to my point.
The White House has a two-pronged strategy:
1) Correct the misconceptions about why we went to war.
2) Justify our efforts going forward to win the war.
My fear is the new media is going to spend too much time on number one and not enough on number two. It does not make sense to debate whether or not we should go to war. If the new media starts making progress one this front, the Democrats and the MSM will simply change the news cycle to something else.
Now is the time to take an active roll and set the agenda. The winning strategy will be to focus on the second prong of President Bush’s strategy. If attention can be focused on the progress that has been made in Iraq, support for the war will follow.
In other words, it is time to play offense, not defense.
