By Kevin McCauley, O'Dwyer's PR Daily

Wartime President George Bush - okay, maybe that description of the Commander-in-Chief is a little hyped and indicative of these self-absorbed days - is seeking a new enemy.

Dubya's so-called 'war on terror' is spurring people to rally around the flag these days. Bush hardly faces the national life and death decisions that either Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt came up against. Also, the President's "war on terrorism" may be okay to drum up viewers for cable TV, but it is a tad overblown. The U.S is engaged in a police action against Al-Qaeda. Special Forces are chasing bad guys, and burrowing into caves trying to root `em out. Troops in Afghanistan are looking for an enemy to fight. The current strategy is to return to once-Al Qaeda bases to make sure those followers of Osama bin Laden aren't recouping there.

Top Administration officials are gamely trying to open new fronts, or at least expand those that the U.S. is currently in. Paul Wolfowitz, for instance, has been trying to rally support for widening the role of the 1,200 Americans who were sent to fight "terrorists" in the Philippines.

The Deputy Secretary of Defense said during a swing through the southern Philippines on June 3 that the U.S. should expand the mission of American troops so they can actively pursue the Abu Sayyaf Al-Qaeda-supporting terror group. That's the 100-member band of desperadoes that the New York Times called a "ragtag kidnapping gang notorious for beheading its captives."

"Cool Hand" Don Rumsfeld shot down Wolfowitz' expansion idea on June 4.

Jig is up

By billing Bush as a "wartime commander," the White House found a useful way to stifle dissent, and build support for the Justice Dept. campaign to restrict the rights of people with plans like fingerprinting every American who is tanned and suspected to be from the Middle East.

The public, however, has caught on to the game. Support for Bush's "war on terror" is on the wane. Many call the battle a "draw," or even say the bad guys are winning.

That was the conclusion of a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll survey released on June 2. Forty percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed said the U.S. was winning the war. That's down from 67 percent in January. Thirty-five percent are now calling it a tie, while 15 percent believe the terrorists are victorious.

Bush is hard-pressed to get people interested in swallowing his war line, when the only evidence of a threat are the vague terror warnings offered by the Administration. The public is more than tired of the "boy that cried wolf" warnings given by various Administration officials. E.g., terrorists may strike the Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Sears Tower, DisneyWorld, Golden Gate Bridge or Grand Canyon but don't worry and have a nice weekend.

So the President has to seize the offensive, in the words of conservative columnist Cal Thomas.

"We've had enough warnings. Besides, what can we do? Remain vigilant? What does that mean? Is a terrorist likely to leave a briefcase nuke at a bus stop?"

Thomas has bigger ideas. He demands pre-emptive action. To Thomas, victory is the cure for the current "political and military impotence" of the Administration. He wants Saddam Hussein-not Americans, to "start each day looking into the mirror and wondering if today is his last day on Earth."

The President, however, has something else up his sleeve. Christine Whitman's Environmental Protection Agency is a much easier target than Saddam.

Radical green fanatics

The EPA got under Dubya's skin by releasing a report that blames humans for global warming. (Ronald Reagan-one of Bush's heroes--fingered trees as the culprits.) Bush doesn't think global warming is much of a problem and is deadset against the Kyoto Treaty, which seeks to reduce emissions from industrialized countries.

The EPA report of May 31 said that continued burning of fossil fuels-"oil that is, black gold, Texas Tea"-will very likely result in the disappearance of Rocky Mountain Meadows and coastal marshes while creating stifling heat waves in the U.S.

It predicts snowpacks will dry up and there will be serious storm surges along America's coasts.

The EPA, on the flip side, offered some positives from global warming, such as more warm weather recreational activities, reduced heating requirements, and fewer cold weather-related deaths.

The President, rather than play up the benefits" of global warming, attacked the source of the report.

His EPA, after all, is just another government "bureaucracy," said Bush, who heads the overall federal bureaucracy.

The EPA though wasn't the only bureaucracy involved with the report. It was prepared with cooperation by the President's Council on Environment Quality, and submitted to the United Nations by the State Dept. The Report then must have some weight.

Some Republicans rallied behind the EPA. "The good news is that the Administration has accepted increasingly strong scientific evidence that human-caused global warming is occurring and costly impacts are real possibilities," said Jim DiPeso, communications director at REP America, a GOP grassroots environmental group.

"The bad news is that the Administration proposed nothing beyond the skimpy plans President Bush put forward earlier this year."

Avoiding the global warming issue risks "more erratic violent weather, water supply constraints, increased frequency of deadly heat waves, and loss of important natural resources."

REP America is calling for a Manhattan Project-type effort to develop clean energy sources to rescue carbon dioxide emissions.

That won't happen for at least another three years when George returns to his beloved Texas ranch. In the meantime, Osama remains Dubya's guy.

Reprinted from O'Dwyer's PR Daily:
http://www.odwyerpr.com/
0605comm_waronterror.htm