FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: SAME OLD CHANGE
Americans should pay very close attention to President Bush's latest use of the word 'change.' In need of some kind of revision in his Iraq sales pitch, Bush is now claiming that his policy is, and has always been, constant...
Americans should pay very close attention to President Bush's latest use of the word 'change.' In need of some kind of revision in his Iraq sales pitch, Bush is now claiming that his policy is, and has always been, constant change--always been the same, constantly changing. But could it be that the President is trying to redefine the idea of "staying the course" so that it means "change" the course? In his Radio Address, for example, we can see the President thrashing around inside this struggle to define his policy as "unchanging" in its committment to "change":
CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES: President Bush tries to convince Americans that his policy in Iraq has always been, and will continue to be, constant "change" (image: CNN).
Our goal in Iraq is clear and unchanging: Our goal is victory. What is changing are the tactics we use to achieve that goal. Our commanders on the ground are constantly adjusting their approach to stay ahead of the enemy, particularly in Baghdad. General Pete Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, recently put it this way: "From a military standpoint, every day is a reassessment day." We have a strategy that allows us to be flexible and to adapt to changing circumstances. We've changed the way we train the Iraqi security forces. We have changed the way we deliver reconstruction assistance in areas that have been cleared of terrorist influence. And we will continue to be flexible, and make every necessary change to prevail in this struggle.
Based on dizzying statements like that, the White House will probably try to tell the American public that the new slogan on Iraq is "flexible" strategy--a word that Bush also repeated a bunch of times. "Change" as "flexibility" is the idea--we are not the same, we are flexible, adjusting to circumstances. But the frame is "change"--which the President is trying very hard to distinguish from "change." In the doublespeak of George W. Bush, there's "change" and then there's "change"
The two "changes" President Bush wants Americans to see are:
- CHANGE - as a flexible tactic
- CHANGE - as a goal
The goal in President Bush's logic has not changed, but the tactic is constantly changing. In fact, the goal has always been a constantly changing tactic--by which he means: adjusting to circumstances.
Scientists would call this a model of "bounded chaos"--a scenario where there is movement within unshifting barriers. For example, if we put a thousand mosquitoes into a glass fish tank we get the classic situation of bounded chaos. The mosquitoes move and shift, constantly changing their behavior. But the walls of the fish tank remain the same--no matter how disorderly things appear inside the fish tank, the glass barrier remains constant.
What President Bush wants American to believe, apparently, is that his Iraq policy is both the glass fish tank and the mosquitoes at the same time--a glass fish tank full of mosquitoes heading down a road towards victory. Inside: constant change. Outside: same goal.
This new attempt by President Bush to reframe "unchanging" as "change" should test the limits of all the buzzing mosquitoes who echo his framing points in the broadcast media. But with two weeks left before the mid-term elections, I imagine they will try just about anything.
© 2006 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop
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