Bush Can't Make the Sale

* 66 percent support either decreasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq or removing them altogether.

* 73 percent think the surge has either not made much difference or has made things worse.

And 44 percent of Americans think U.S. involvement in Iraq is creating more terrorists who are planning to attack the U.S -- compared to 18 percent who think it is eliminating terrorists who were planning to attack the U.S.

Two Key Departures

In less than two months, several Republicans have threatened to abandon Bush on Iraq unless he can show signs of success -- and of course there are less than 18 months left in his presidency. But while it's crunch time at the White House, more of Bush's key aides are leaving, their goals not only unmet but unattainable.

As Michael A. Fletcher reported in The Washington Post yesterday: "After two years at the White House as a strategic adviser on national security, Peter D. Feaver is heading back to Duke University to teach international relations."

It was Feaver's research in public opinion that inspired the White House's strategy to emphasize optimism even in the face of disaster.

As Peter Baker and Dan Balz wrote in a seminal Post story two years ago: "When President Bush confidently predicts victory in Iraq and admits no mistakes, admirers see steely resolve and critics see exasperating stubbornness. But the president's full-speed-ahead message articulated in this week's prime-time address also reflects a purposeful strategy based on extensive study of public opinion about how to maintain support for a costly and problem-plagued military mission. . . .

"Behind the president's speech is a conviction among White House officials that the battle for public opinion on Iraq hinges on their success in convincing Americans that, whatever their views of going to war in the first place, the conflict there must and can be won."

That was Feaver's work. But it turns out that reality matters. And now Feaver is slinking back to North Carolina.

And while Scott Sforza's resignation last week went unmentioned by the press corps, his departure may be an even more potent metaphor for a White House that has lost its ability to persuade.

Sforza, a former TV producer, was responsible for visual image control at the White House. His calling card was majestic backdrops intended to imbue Bush with an aura of invincibility. His most famous achievement, of course, was the " Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier

As Elisabeth Bumiller wrote in the New York Times in May 2003: "George W. Bush's 'Top Gun' landing on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln will be remembered as one of the most audacious moments of presidential theater in American history. But it was only the latest example of how the Bush administration, going far beyond the foundations in stagecraft set by the Reagan White House, is using the powers of television and technology to promote a presidency like never before...