The Bush administration-persistence over substance

"As President Bush sent his proposed Iraq attack resolution to Capital Hill yesterday, his rout of Congressional Democrats was virtually complete. The opposition party had all but resigned itself to passing the resolution with the wording Bush desired on the timetable he demanded."

President Bush discovered during his presidency one of the key factors of successful mass persuasion: Keep the message simple, hammer away relentlessly at the public, and eventually, they will come around to your point of view. Well educated, intelligent people can be made to believe the most arrant nonsense if one is patient and forceful in presentation. You don't have to clever, just consistent and persistent:

"The other pattern Bush repeated in his strategy on Iraq was a preference to handle one issue at a time. The president has been at his weakest when he has attempted to juggle many issues -- as he was earlier this year when dealing with the economy, the Middle East and Al Qaeda. But when Bush is able to focus on one goal at a time -- taxes, Afghanistan, and now Iraq -- he is difficult to stop. "He can say the same thing over and over again and eventually it breaks through," said former [Clinton] political director Craig Smith. Those who served in the Clinton White House acknowledge that they occasionally diluted the power of the bully pulpit by working on too many issues simultaneously."

The average American has a limited attention span. Keep it simple, keep it straightforward, and look sincere while lying, and eventually, your message will get through. How depressing.