Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[PegnVA]

Today's Washington Post (page one) details that the White House recently brought onto it's staff two of the nation's top academic experts on public opinion during wartime, Duke University's Peter D. Feaver, whose studies are now helping Bush craft his message is one of them.
GWB must continue to publicly express confidence in his Iraqi war because "at stake is the ability to sustain a war that so far has claimed the lives of nearly 1,780 US troops and that Defense Secrtary Donald H. Rumsfeld could last for years".

The second brought on board to help with public opinion is Duke University's Christopher F. Gelpi.
Gelpi said he thinks the president did not achieve what he needed to with the Tuesday speech which was to clearly demonstrate progress and set measurable goals to demonstrate that progress is indeed being made.