Operation Oprah

By John F. Dickerson

Wondering how the President plans to spend the $87 billion he asked for to rebuild Iraq? You could have tuned in to David Letterman last week to hear Colin Powell try to ease the country's sticker shock. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will soon be appearing on Oprah to do a version of the same. The Administration's plan to bypass the traditional media has got so creative that someone in the White House suggested the Secretary of Defense should appear on the Imus in the Morning radio show. Donald Rumsfeld declined.

Skirting the newspapers makes sense for a President who last week reminded us in a Fox TV interview that he doesn't really read them. It was a good week not to. Bush's approval ratings fell to the lowest point of his presidency. His trip to the U.N. was panned for winning no new support. On Capitol Hill, Administration officials were being pounded for faulty postwar planning and facing charges from Democrats that they still weren't coming clean about the costs. Conservative Republicans were in their own mini-revolt over spending on prisons and post offices in Iraq that they would like to see here. Even the President's beloved Texas Rangers are in last place.

This is very far from where the Bush campaign wants to be 14 months before the election. "We knew it would be close," says one top adviser, "but this is going to be an ugly fall." The White House was aware a downturn was coming--Bush aides have predicted since April that the President could not sustain his high approval ratings--but they didn't expect to find themselves on the defensive about the war to topple Saddam with so few options to fight back. Perceptions about the chaos in Iraq are out of Bush's control, determined by events on the ground and resistant to the black-and-white rhetoric and aura of command that once served him so well. And the President's rock-solid base--in Washington and around the country--may be getting a little restless.

On the Hill, some conservatives are pushing to strip the $20 billion the President has asked Congress to pony up for Iraq reconstruction, and to restructure it as loans. "Why should we give all this money to a country that's so rich in minerals?" Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California conservative and staunch Bush ally, asked a closed meeting of House Republicans last week. At the same time, the 10 Democratic presidential hopefuls are landing blows on national security, an issue that was supposed to be unavailable to the opposition. And the addition of General Wesley Clark only gives the Democrats more credibility on this terrain. Though the G.O.P. foot soldiers support George W. Bush with a fervor not seen since Ronald Reagan's presidency--the campaign has raised close to $80 million so far--they are calling on the White House to start fighting back. "It's 10 to 1," says a Bush adviser who has urged the campaign to go on the offensive, "and the one isn't even in the game. It's a problem of sheer tonnage."

The White House is presenting a Zen face, but it is also taking action. In addition to putting members of the war cabinet in nontraditional media outlets and increasing the President's exposure, it has started regular twice-weekly conference calls with its allies on the Hill to supply anecdotes about improvements in the lives of Iraqis and successes in the war on terrorism, trusting that they will work their way on to talk radio and cable TV. And in early October the Bush team will launch a blog to chronicle the campaign online.

Some in the Administration dismiss the grumbling, even within their ranks. One senior official compared the complaints over the $87 billion to the father of the bride disputing the size of the wedding bill. That attitude misses signs of discontent from Republican members of Congress who say privately what's really eating them isn't the money but the slipshod postwar operation. "It would be helpful if they would say, 'We were caught flat-footed, but now we're handling it,'" says a G.O.P. Congressman. "But they won't." Talking to his aides, Bush believes in sticking to an optimistic vision: "You can't say, 'Follow me--things are going to hell in a handbasket.'" Plus, the President's supporters love it when he doesn't blink. "His greatest strength among the base is that he says what he believes and does not bend," says a top Michigan Republican.

The Administration may not be communicating well, or Americans may just not be buying what the White House is selling. For months, the President has been trying to convince Americans that the sacrifices in Iraq are as necessary a response to the attacks of 9/11 as the campaign in Afghanistan. Bush's prime-time Sunday-night speech three weeks ago used the soaring rhetoric that had worked in the past to rally the country to the cause, but it didn't work. By a margin of 51% to 41%, Americans oppose the President's request for the money, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

One risk of the new campaign of positive talk is that it can all be undone by a single high-profile bombing in Baghdad, painting the Bush team as either out of touch or Pollyannaish. And it also won't be easy for the Administration to convince viewers of Oprah and Letterman that progress is being made in Iraq, just when the Pentagon is extending tours of duty and calling up reservists, which means more missed birthday parties and lower pay for just the kind of viewers the Administration is trying to win over. --With reporting by Matthew Cooper/Washington

With reporting by Matthew Cooper/Washington