They don’t control events, though. And events are spun. As events have unfolded poorly under Obama, there hasn’t been much spin from them. More like minimal attention and reliance on the public perception backdrop that no matter what, Obama is better/right in contrast to Bush’s worse/wrong.

Take away the BDS backdrop and they are very vulnerable.

The opportunity is there right now to change the rules of the game. In the spin arena – ie, the decisive narrative arena – there’s a vacuum right now. A vacuum is an invitation to any usurper who’s bold and smart enough.

Step firm into that vacuum, seize the initiative, seize the frame, seize the spin of current events and the narrative, use the media’s nature to broadcast the new narrative, and thereby bend the public perception to your frame. Keep up the momentum and stay ahead of the competition, and you’ve just reprogrammed the political environment.

Activism works for the right just as well it works for the left. It can be done if the GOP has the activist skill, swashbuckling cajones, commitment, and imagination to do it.

“They won’t be able to help themselves if the BushvObama frame is pushed with enough volume, clarity, and momentum.”

I do not disagree. My point is that it is difficult (not impossible) because their leftist meme controls their narrative. Furthermore, what is important is that you have an audience that first at least hears such a comparison; second, eventually an audience that listens to it.

Again, not impossible, but a tall order when the enemy contols the communication.

I repeat, however, that this makes it even more necessary to raise such a call to action as yours.

I disagree. That’s not desperation. ‘Mean girl’ politics is their MO and SOP. Desperation isn’t needed in order to use a proven front-line strategy.

Their goal is not to be awarded power for winning policy debates on merit. Their goal is to take and hold power by defeating their domestic political competition. There’s a difference.

Tactical application of strategy: two birds, one stone. You do it practically by using Bush as the positive comparison to the negative contrast of Obama in current foreign policy critiques of Obama.

The media is designed to use provocative, adversarial, yet also simplified dichotomous frames. They won’t be able to help themselves if the BushvObama frame is pushed with enough volume, clarity, and momentum.

An example of the MSM opening the door to the BushvObama frame – Richard Engel, NBC News chief foreign correspondent:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/07/13686562-the-arab-spring-is-dead-and-syria-is-writing-its-obituary

Engel compares the anti-terrorist effect of US intervention in Iraq favorably to Obama’s disastrous ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring, which of course, encompasses Benghazi and Libya, as well as Syria. Engel doesn’t clarify and push BushvObama – doing so is not his job. However, Republicans could and should widen that opening and drive through the gap with the BushvObama frame.

What happens when Bush’s legacy isn’t upheld and it’s not used to critique Obama in current affairs? This happens:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/23/opinion/zelizer-bush-library/

Obama’s failures are assigned to Bush. They get it away with it because Republicans run away from Bush’s legacy. Republicans seem to think the damage can be contained to Bush and fail to recognize that the attacks on Bush’s record are calculated to discredit the whole GOP.

The Republicans could and should have been using the BushvObama frame as soon as Obama’s tissue-thin mystique was punctured by his real-world failures. The problem is Republicans – led by short-sighted IR realists (Saddam revisionists/nostalgics) and libertarians (isolationists) – accepted and even endorsed the BDS frame, seemingly ignoring the self-inflicted political wounds from their doing so.

The Republicans should have spun the BDS strategy against the Dems once Obama’s real-world record opened the door, but instead, the GOP upheld the Dems’ BDS frame and absorbed the GOP-discrediting hits. The Dems’ reliance on BDS could be turned against them if Bush’s legacy is rehabilitated and the better/worse, right/wrong polarities are flipped in the frame. Flip the Bush legacy to a positive in public perception and the whole Dems/GOP political balance will flip if the Republicans can follow through.

BushvObama is a time-sensitive strategy. It will work now. Wait too long and it’ll be too late to make a difference.

I did, but responded as I did because it works on so many levels. As sarcasm it is a clear demonstration of Neo’s point.

As a “troll response” it is a clear demonstration of Neo’s point. Kind of like John Kerry proclaiming that in America we have the right to be stupid; QED.

I do not disagree with you strategically. In practice, however, this is a very difficult assignment because the MSM still controls most of the national narrative. As I mentioned above, I believe that this is beginning to change, but it will not happen overnight and I’m certain not in the remaining tenure of the Obama administration (more’s the pity).

Still, your call is a necessary one. Without such calls to action as your’s to drive such change it might never happen at all.

For the public, any immunity the Obama administration is granted on foreign affairs is founded on the vilification of Bush and the GOP by extension. That is the basis for the perspective that anything Obama does *in contrast* is better than the alternative of Bush and the GOP. Or more starkly stated, if Bush/GOP was categorically wrong, then Obama/Dems are diametrically right *in contrast*.

Recall that Obama’s Libya strategy was explicitly positioned as the anti-Bush Iraq strategy. That means in the public’s mind, the 4 dead for the better and right alternative strategy is still cheap compared to the thousands lives and billions (trillions by critics’ extrapolated costs!) lost on the worse and wrong Iraq strategy.

If, however, Bush’s Iraq strategy and broader post-9/11 foreign policy are rehabilitated in the public’s perception, then Obama’s Libya strategy and broader foreign policy can be criticized with public traction.

As long as you allow the false narrative, misinformation, and propaganda against Bush, OIF, the Freedom Agenda stand as the historical truth, you can do no better than spin your wheels with the public perception of Obama’s foreign affairs.

There’s too much proudly stupid in the electoral mix.

Ooh look: Kool Aid.

It’s time to change the franchise, the charter, the privilege, the patent, whatever. The constitution.

Something.