Influence from abroad: Foreign voices, the media and U.S. public opinion

Abstract

This book overthrows the commonly held thesis that domestic elites are the primary influence drivers behind mass public opinion during international conflict. The exercise in self-restraint to show a united front in international relations has been the conventional wisdom for nearly 70 years in U.S. foreign policy relations. Michigan Republican Arthur Vandenberg, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in postwar 1947, called on his Senate colleagues to lend their support for the Truman Doctrine efforts to challenge Soviet imperialism overseas and said, “we must stop partisan politics at the water's edge.” That conventional wisdom was in dramatic form in Washington from just after Labor Day 2002 through 19 March 2003 when Democratic Party opposition to the Bush-Cheney military response to Iraq was all but on silent mode. Bush White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card explained the post-Labor Day timing of the strategic communications campaign, known as the White House Iraq Group (aka White House Information Group or WHIG), this way: “From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August” (Bumiller, 2002). “A centerpiece of the strategy, White House officials said, is to use Mr. Bush's speech on 11 Sept. to help move Americans toward support of action against Iraq, which could come early next year.” Couching the Iraq military invasion in the rally-round-the-flag syndrome of post-September 11, the bipartisan support for a military option against Iraq caught on in short order and with little notable dissent. On 11 October 2002, a three-quarter majority of the Senate, including many Democrats (77-23), notably 2008 presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, authorized the use of military force against Iraq. This united front created an information vacuum that was filled by foreign elite voices opposed to the Bush administration in substance or procedure; even kingpins in the Senate were given a stage that did not reverberate. The book devotes an entire chapter, “Byrd Gets No Word,” to Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and his eloquent, but futile, quest to amplify Democratic Party dissent: “Listen. You can hear a pin drop” (p. 51). An interesting footnote is that Hayes and Guardino show that the Department of Defense attempt to use military analysts to make the case for war in Iraq “did not appear to pay significant dividends for the Bush Administration, at least on network television before the war” (p. 40).