The manipulation of public opinion about war is nothing new. During WWII, the War Department (as DoD was then known) and OSS hired some of the most prominent psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists for this purpose. People such asRobert K Merton (probablty the leading 20th centure sociologist), Kurt Lewin (a polymath psychologist with strong progressive political leanings) and Paul Lazarsfeld (a giant in survey work) were part of this effort. The focus group (Merton and to a lesser degree Lazarsfeld were its inventors) actually owes much of its origins to this effort and there were great refinements in survey research.

OTOH, Allen has been trading as "journalist" for years and his yipping and yapping for joy need the kind of attention that Kos, AmericaBlog & others have been lavishing on the hapless Bill O'Reilly. BTW, when I pick up Politico at the Metro, it takes me about 2 minutes to read it. It seems mostly useful as something to ball up as fill when packing valuables.

Isn't Van Der Hei married to some mid-level wingnut--a Hill staffer or lobbyist? I'm sure that helps him get these silly tidbits.

I think one reason that real opposition doesn't get represented (unlike these clowns) is that the opposition to the war has always been broad and diverse, even when it didn't represent the majority. You have what's left of the pacifist movement--assorted Quakers, anti-nuke people, Mennonites, etc., which isn't all that organized, represents rather marginal groups, and doesn't really have a public face. Then there are the predictable "spokesmen" for "the Left": Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky who have useful things to say, buta lso are gasbags of sorts. Chomsky likes playing the provocative college professor, something that many of us (esp. PhD ex-academics like me) find tiresome and self-serving. Then you have people like Cindy Sheehan who has, unfortunately, morphed into a caricuture of herself. There are plenty of other critics like Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, but they are outsiders to the pundit class (which, if anything makes them more incisive observers), but they aren't necessarrily identified with the war to the same degree as the Kagans, et al. And, of course, there are a few right wing critics, although they tend to be folks on the margins, anyway.

Part of the problem is the willingness of the Post, in particular, to keep supporting the war regardless of what is on its news pages. And because the opposition to the war has long been diverse, the media is too lazy to move beyond the usual suspects, or they simply capitalize on the ones who seem like celebs (Sheehan in her heyday) or the most tiresome but quotable (like Vidal or Chomsky). This isn't that much different than what heppend during the Vietnam war. SDSers and people like Dr. Spock were more colorful and accessible than the increasingly diverse range of people who came to question the war.

Bush's invocation of "God" in this war always has been vague and unrooted in anything resembling theology. he has been vague about his "conversion" and his follow-up seemed to be Bible classes built around a simplistic, limited view of Christianity. In general, Bush seems to be unformed or at least inadeqautely formed person. He's been continually bailed out whether it be the draft, business failures, or the 2000 election. His main business experience was in a field that exists largely as a tax write-off. No one expects to make money with oil exploration, the real question is how to eventually get out of it when the losses do more than lessesn one's taxes.

Bush has managed to onscure his questionable National Guard history and his discussion of his drug and alcohol use has been as vague as his subequent "recovery". One need not go through 12 step to successfully recover from serious substance abuse, but there normally is some process of learning to how to deal with the world that previously had been blotted out. The denial and soforth seem reflect the absence of that. Bush never talsk about his business failures or his "youthful indecretions. For some reason, the media has continually gone along with this. I'm told Bush is quite charming in person, but on tv, he always has seemed brittle, in articulate, and childish. At best, I imagine him being a bit like a Willy Loman-esque uncle of mine--charming in a somewhat juvenile way that many people find amusing at first, but grating and troublesome as it wears on. Sadly, people who know him close up (like our friends in the media) seem less immune to this than the rest of us.