Bush's Iraq memo seeks echo on Hill

[Rose Siding]

The White House yesterday sent congressional Republicans a memo suggesting that GOP lawmakers should refer to Iraqi voters as “courageous” and to the elections as “transparent.” The talking-points memo is silent on a timeline for pulling out the 150,000 U.S. troops in country.

While Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue routinely coordinate their public-relations strategies, the latest directive comes at a particularly sensitive juncture: two days after the elections, one day before President Bush’s State of the Union address and at the same time that Democrats are demanding the president declare when he will withdraw American forces.
...
The talking points look to be part of a larger Republican effort to sound a consistently positive tone while juxtaposing that against what the GOP portrays as Democratic sniping and gloominess.

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesman Brian Nick yesterday released a series of Democratic quotes that, he said, reflect the Democrats’ “partisan, negative tone for 2005.”

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/020205/iraq.html

[StephanieMarie]

1. Just ask them

if the Iraqi's get transparent elections, why don't we?

[Cocoa]

2. does the memo mention payment?

$100,000 in taxpayer money for each use of the magic words "courageous" and "transparent" seems about right.

[yurbud]

3. or that the vast majority want us to leave NOW

[Supersedeas]

4. spin-spin-spin-spin....one two three four....spin-spin-spin-spin

Now, Rove says march.