The president's war agenda: a rhetorical view.

Rex, Justin

Mr. President, if I can only go out of office, at the end of my term, with the knowledge that I have done what lay in my power to avert this terrible calamity, with the success that has crowned your patience and persistence, I shall be the happiest man in the world.

--William McKinley to Grover Cleveland, March 3, 1897, the day before McKinley's inauguration

We won't do Iraq now, we're putting Iraq off. But eventually we'll have to return to that question.

--George W. Bush to Condoleezza Rice, September 16, 2001

George W. Bush and William McKinley began their tenures with very different positions on the wars that would define their presidencies. Why was Bush able to set the agenda that successfully took the country to war in Iraq, and McKinley unable to control the agenda to avert war with Spain? What role did presidential rhetoric play in these outcomes? Did the use of presidential rhetoric harm the deliberation process and produce poor policy decisions for war? The present inquiry attempts to answer these questions by combining scholarship on presidential agenda setting with Jeffrey Tulis's (1987 "rhetorical presidency" model. To do so, I conduct two case studies: William McKinley's influence on the agenda for the Spanish-American War and George W. Bush's influence on the agenda for the Iraq War.

These cases are useful for several reasons. First, they allow an examination of whether Tulis is correct to divide presidents into pre-rhetorical and rhetorical presidents. The methods by which McKinley attempted to avert war provide an avenue to reflect again on whether he clearly fits the nineteenth-century mold of a pre-rhetorical president, or whether he is better placed as a transitional figure or even a full-fledged rhetorical president. Studying presidents prior to war is useful because if a president ever breaches rhetorical norms, a likely time to do so is when he is asked to step into the role of commander in chief, as outlined in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. In this role, the president likely will need to persuade Congress to appropriate funds and the populace to sacrifice, among other rhetorical acts. At the time of the Spanish- American War and the Iraq War, the United States was entering a phase of expanded control outside its borders, adding further need for rhetorical leadership. In such a situation, the president must not only attempt to persuade citizens and representatives at home, but also engage rhetorically through diplomacy with other countries.

Second, these cases allow for a look at the relationship between presidential leadership and public opinion. The fact that McKinley was working against public opinion in his attempt to avert war shows the limits of a president working against the grain of public sentiment. The selection of Bush offers an interesting contrast to show the force with which a president can act when he is able to shape policy in line with public opinion. (1) Finally, we can compare the effect that presidential rhetoric had on deliberation and policy outcomes in each case, an important component of Tulis's argument that has received little scholarly attention. (2)

This study yields important conclusions not only about the utility of Tulis's model for scholarship on agenda setting, but also about the significant institutional changes, particularly those of the media and the executive department, that contribute to the modern presidents' domination of the war agenda. Whereas McKinley's war agenda reflects the pre-rhetorical presidency and the rhetorical and institutional restraints that flow from it, Bush's war agenda is best understood as exemplifying the powers of the rhetorical presidency. Moreover, in the case of Bush, we can see the danger that presidential rhetoric introduces to the deliberation process prior to war.

Previous Scholarship on Agenda Setting and Presidential Rhetoric

Political scientists have long studied the president's role in agenda setting (Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Edwards 2003; Kernell 1993; Kingdon 2003; Light 1999). More We do know that presidents have not always had license to publicly attempt to control the agenda. As Jeffrey Tulis (1987) argues, prior to the twentieth century, presidents were under the grip of a rhetorical "common law" that placed significant restrictions on their ability to lead and persuade the public with popular spoken rhetoric, a norm that gradually subsided in the twentieth century as presidents became more outspoken. Tulis's argument has met with considerable criticism. David Zarefsky (2002) finds evidence of rhetorical leadership since the presidency's inception, including inaugural addresses, veto messages, and acceptances at nomination conventions. Announcing policy mandates is another long-standing rhetorical practice of presidents (Ellis and Kirk 1998). Mel Laracey (2002, 2007, 2008, 2009) finds widespread use of presidential rhetoric in the form of presidential newspapers, public letters, and policy speeches throughout the nineteenth century. (3) Rather than one rhetorical norm, we find competing norms about going public from the outset (Laracey 2002).

Yet these criticisms obscure the relative frequency with which modern presidents now use policy rhetoric. As David A. Crockett (2009) writes, [I]t stretches credibility to say there is no difference in the rhetorical practices of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, on the one hand, and James Madison and Ulysses Grant, on the other. In a footnote, Laracey states, "It is true that none of these presidents addressed policy matters on a continuous basis, as is done now. That is not, however, a valid distinction" ([Laracey] 2009, 927). On the contrary, that is precisely the distinction.

We would think it strange for Bush to be silent publicly about his position on Iraq, but (almost completely) silent is precisely what McKinley was with respect to the Spanish-American War, as I explain later. In this sense, McKinley is the product of an earlier norm, though not one so clearly delineated from our modern one, as Tulis would have us believe.

Though much of the debate has focused on the frequency of rhetorical acts and their proper definition, (4) this attention misses the core of Tulis's argument (Crockett 2009). Ultimately, he uses presidential rhetoric as a window through which to look at the place of the presidency in the constitutional order and the proper political actors and avenues by which policy deliberation should take place (Tulis 2007). Presidential rhetoric creates new, and potentially damaging, complications for the deliberative process and its policy outcomes (Crockett 2003; Tulis 1987). These complications are a major focus of this paper in the section on Bush.

William McKinley and the Spanish-American War

Perspectives on McKinley

There are several ways to understand President McKinley's inability to halt the Spanish-American War. One way to view McKinley is as a small fish attempting to swim against a much stronger current of historical forces. Among the proponents of this view, John L. Offner contends that the war was inevitable. Powerful domestic forces in America pushing for war, combined with Cuban nationalism and determined Spanish colonialism, "were irreconcilable forces allowing for no compromise" (1992, ix). These forces created an inevitable war outside the control of determined yet futile human attempts to stop these fateful forces.

Another perspective focuses on McKinley's psychological makeup. Gerald F. Linderman (1974) paints McKinley as a weak leader, partly because he was deeply influenced by his experiences fighting in the American Civil War, and partly because of his beliefs about the presidency. He matured as the country was tearing itself apart during the Civil War. This experience fostered a deep desire for unity and the political style of a conciliator: "he stressed that which united and obscured that which divided" (Linderman 1974, 19). His alleged weakness stemmed also from his belief that the president should be subservient to public opinion (the "people knew more than any one man"), as well as his fear of a strong executive (Linderman 1974, 30).

After seeing the horrors of one war and not wanting another, McKinley's mental state deteriorated as the Spanish-American War became imminent. He could not sleep without drugs, he began to pace through the grounds of the White House, and he broke down and cried in the presence of a close friend (Linderman 1974). According to Linderman, he soon grew "paralyzed," eventually capitulating his private desires to public demand, and "slipped over the line between peace and war" rather than decisively leading the country as commander in chief (1974, 31, 34). From this perspective, McKinley stands in sharp contrast to Bush, whose decisiveness and steadfastness were central to the way in which he defined himself as a leader (Skowronek 2005).

Lewis L. Gould (1980a) argues that this characterization does not fit with McKinley's diplomatic achievements leading up to the war. As Gould shows, McKinley actively and skillfully tried to avert war. In support, Gould argues that despite Spanish intransigence and public support for war, McKinley successfully stalled the war for five months as he conducted diplomacy with Spain. This success flew in the face of difficult setbacks, including the bombing of the USS Maine and the publication of the De Lome letter denouncing McKinley as a weak leader. In place of a weak leader, Gould argues that McKinley's actions "reveal a subtlety of action, a fortitude of will, and a simple courage that belie the easy stereotypes of his historical reputation" (1980a, 52). This characterization seems especially apt once the war actually began, particularly in McKinley's active command of the telephone to communicate with those fighting the war (Loomis 1969). McKinley's doubts about the war and his weak leadership, if they were ever present, appeared to evaporate as he stepped into the commander in chief role during the war and when making strong territorial claims after the war. (5)

How can we square these contrasting views of McKinley with the fact that he did speak publicly before the war but did not mention his position? Mel Laracey (2002) argues that McKinley's silence on Spain was part of a deliberative strategy to remain firm and to rally support for his decision to resolve the conflict diplomatically, not a result of weakness. We can see McKinley's strategic thinking, argues Laracey, in that McKinley did speak publicly about maintaining the gold standard once prior to war.

I try to incorporate parts of these diverging views into the present analysis, although I give special attention to the importance of rhetorical acts and norms. I argue that McKinley's acts prior to the Spanish-American War are best understood as a hybrid of his psychology and strategy and of the nineteenth-century rhetorical limits on his ability to set the agenda, as well as the limited institutional avenues he had to do so, which I discuss in more detail later. First, I discuss the lead-up to the war in more detail, against the backdrop of these rhetorical and institutional constraints. Interestingly, there are many parallels and comparisons to be drawn between the war agendas of Bush and McKinley. I leave those to the section on Bush.

The March to War

Upon taking office in 1897, McKinley inherited a mixed policy toward fighting between Spain and Cuba from his predecessor, Grover Cleveland. Cubans had begun fighting for independence from Spain as early as 1868. When the most recent bout broke out in 1895, Cleveland took a stance of neutrality, believing that Cuba would be most stable under the control of Spain. He urged Spain to reach a political settlement to stabilize the country, as the fighting was disrupting America's trade interests. Congressional Republicans, however, took the side of Cuban independence. After the presidential election, but before McKinley officially took office, Cleveland switched positions. Growing troubled with mounting Cuban casualties, Cleveland threatened intervention if a settlement could not be reached, thereby laying the initial groundwork justifying intervention based on humanitarian concern (Offner 1998).

McKinley's position toward Cuba was still unknown when he took office (Offner 1998). He did not mention Cuba during his campaign (Offner 2004). His position remained that way throughout the prewar period (Linderman 1974). One of McKinley's first acts addressing the situation in Cuba was to send a political friend, William J. Calhoun, to Cuba to report (Gould 1980b). Calhoun reported the unpleasant realities of the fighting.

On the diplomatic front, McKinley sent Stewart L. Woodford to Spain soon after as a diplomatic minister (Offner 2004). The assassination of the Spanish prime minister brought Praxedes Sagasta to power, a leader who brought a potential for fruitful diplomacy with his commitment to reforming relations with Cuba. McKinley's commitment to a peaceful resolution is reflected in his December 1897 State of the Union message, in which he expressed his opinion that Spain should be given time to reform before any serious consideration of war. He did, however, threaten intervention should the reforms not come to fruition. (6)

Two events in the first few months of 1898 severely tested McKinley's ability to maintain control of the agenda on diplomatic terms. The unfavorable letter from Spanish diplomat Enrique Dupuy de Lome published in the New York Journal on February 9 and the sinking of the USS Maine on the February 16 acted as powerful symbols for the pro-Cuban movement. John W. Kingdon notes that symbols act as "reinforcement for something already taking place and as something that rather powerfully focuses attention, rather than as a prime mover in agenda setting ... they capture in a nutshell some sort of reality that people already sense in a vaguer, more diffuse way" (2003, 98).

The De Lome letter did so by adding fuel to the fire of those supporting American intervention. De Lome criticized McKinley, characterizing him as "weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd, besides being a would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party" (quoted in Gould 1980b, 34). He wrote further that Sagasta's reforms were insincere, as they were attempts only to buy more time for Spanish military victory. If Sagasta was insincere, McKinley's diplomatic efforts were inconsequential and misguided.

The sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor shortly thereafter only heightened the Cuban situation's place on the agenda with perhaps an even more powerful symbol. This ship sunk because of an explosion, although it was not clear immediately whether it was internal or the result of an external mine. The public grew inflamed, and many in the "yellow" press ran sensational stories declaring Spain the guilty party (Offner 1998). This sinking heightened the war feeling, and enlistment offers began to stream into Washington (Leech 1959).

McKinley, however, proceeded cautiously. He ordered a naval commission to investigate the cause of the explosion and advocated suspending judgment. Such caution was hard to come by. Indicating the fervor of the war mood, Linderman writes, "So impatient with Spain was American opinion in mid-February of 1898 that if war were to be averted the official investigating commission appointed by McKinley would have to prove the Spanish government innocent of any responsibility for the loss of the Maine and two hundred and sixty American lives" (1974, 26). In the six weeks before the report was released, Congress passed a $50 million defense bill appropriating funds for what looked like preparation for an offensive war. Despite navy purchases that included two cruisers, proponents of the bill said it would act to deter Spain from war toward a peaceful settlement (Offner 2004).

Just before the Maine report was released in late March, Senator Red field Proctor delivered a powerful speech to the Senate about the conditions in Cuba after a recent trip there. The speech supplied perhaps what earlier symbolic events could not: an unambiguous case for war based on humanitarian grounds (Linderman 1974). In addition to the powerful images of destitute Cubans and a failing economy, the speech was given further credence by the perception that Proctor was speaking on behalf of McKinley. The speech's power is indicated by the swing in support for war by prominent conservative businessmen and the religious press (Offner 2004).

Despite these three events, along with the publication on March 28 of the Maine report, which concluded that an external explosion was the cause, McKinley still attempted diplomacy. Upon the report's publication, McKinley was met with congressional demands for war. The public and the press read the report as evidence of Spanish guilt, further propelling the frenzy for war (Leech 1959). Worried about upcoming congressional elections, more than 100 backbench House Republicans caucused to discuss joining the Democrats in supporting war. In response, McKinley issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Spain, demanding compliance with U.S. proposals. Spain responded with compliance, agreeing to stop the reconcentration of Cubans and to allow U.S. aid. Spain said it would support an armistice only if the Cubans first asked for one, which they were unwilling to do.

With war imminent because of Cuba's refusal and the public and congressional mood, some last-minute negotiations by the pope and other European powers resulted in a declaration to suspend hostilities by Spain on April 10. Cubans, however, refused anything short of independence. With little support for pacifism and little time for diplomacy, McKinley decided to go to war under his terms, rather than make an impossible attempt to delay war further (Leech 1959). A message that McKinley delivered to Congress on April 11 described the humanitarian crisis in Cuba and asked Congress for the authority to intervene. After some debate in Congress over future American relations with Cuba, both houses passed resolutions to declare war on April 19. The president signed the resolutions the next day and sent word to Madrid, which severed diplomatic relations the day after.

McKinley's Rhetoric

Where do McKinley's rhetorical attempts to control the agenda fit into these events? Previous scholarship is not consistent about the frequency and method by which he went public during his presidency. Scholarship is consistent on the point that McKinley did not speak publicly about the war prior to its onset, although I will challenge this view here with a rereading of his public speeches. Though I agree that McKinley did go public, even using Tulis's restrictive definition of rhetoric (a point that Tulis concedes), I conclude that the infrequency of his use of rhetoric, especially prior to the war, suggests that his actions fit much more meaningfully within the nineteenth- century norm of restricted popular rhetoric.

According to Tulis's data (see Tables 1 and 2), although the president did speak before the public, he did not discuss the war (Tulis 1987).v Despite appearances, Tulis notes that McKinley made "no speech that even alludes to the Spanish-American War, the sinking of the Maine, the problem of 'Jim Crow' laws, or the United States policy toward the Philippines, all major issues faced by McKinley" (1987, 87). Linderman concurs, writing, "He did not mention Cuba in a public address prior to the outbreak of the war. He said nothing when the Maine sank. McKinley said nothing to inhibit the leap of the public mind from the inquiry's finding of 'external explosion' to outright Spanish culpability" (1974, 30).

Laracey (2002, 2007, 2008, 2009) challenges Tulis's description of McKinley, though not the conclusion that McKinley did not address the war before it began. First, Laracey challenges Tulis's brief account of McKinley (quoted earlier) as inaccurate because McKinley did speak to the public about his policy views, though about not his views on the Spanish-American War prior to its onset. These speeches included a tour in 1899 in which he discussed the war (after its conclusion) and policy toward the Philippines; a tour in 1901 during which he discussed trust, control, and commercial reciprocity; and another series of speeches in 1901 specifically about reciprocal tariff treaties. McKinley also made a series of more ceremonial speeches in which he praised the sacrifices of those who had fought in the Spanish-American War and another praising the unity displayed by Northern and Southern soldiers who had fought side by side in Cuba, in which he also mentioned America's duty to remain in the Philippines. Ultimately, "McKinley's tours, in contrast [to his predecessors], were made precisely so that the president might put before the American people his positions on major policy questions of the time" (Laracey 2002, 136).

Also, though the use of presidential communication to the public through presidential newspapers trailed off after 1860 with the onset of the independent press, McKinley did try to influence the public indirectly using papers on several occasions. Although Tulis and Linderman are correct to say that McKinley said nothing himself at crucial moments before the war, McKinley was not completely hands-off when it came to public opinion. Stephen Ponder (1994) notes that after the sinking of the Maine, McKinley urged restraint "[i]n a series of statements to the press, released variously through the Cabinet, congressional leaders, his secretaries, and, apparently, by the president himself." (8) These releases were part of larger changes in press relations undertaken by McKinley, though many of the significant and permanent changes that Ponder describes came after the onset of the war. (9)

William D. Harpine (2008) challenges Tulis's account, too, but not the conclusion that McKinley used rhetoric infrequently by modern standards or that McKinley did not speak of the war publicly prior to its onset. Whereas Tulis sees McKinley as clearly operating under nineteenth-century rhetorical norms, Harpine sees him as a more transitional figure. Harpine divides McKinley's rhetoric into four stages. During the first stage, prior to war, his speeches were stylized and ritualistic but not substantive. During the second stage, postwar, his speeches became more politically charged, though not explicitly so, because he "argued by implication" while still using broad value- laden terms (Harpine 2008, 318). For example, instead of advocating a treaty settlement for annexing the Philippines, he talked of a great nation that consequently must take on great responsibilities, which left the connection between the two to the audience. During the third stage, his rhetoric become more deliberative, offering explicit reasons for his opinions, but he still spoke only after Congress had voted, as when he spoke in favor of ratification of the annexation treaty. In one of his last speeches, McKinley moved into a fourth phase, what is the norm today for presidents, in which he explicitly advocated future policy by reversing his long-held preference for tariffs with a call for more open markets.

Tulis (2007) concedes he overstated the degree to which McKinley fits within the "first constitution," recognizing that McKinley did mention some of the very issues that Tulis denied he did. However, he concludes that McKinley, like other "post- bellum presidents[,] pushed against the boundaries of the nineteenth-century constitutional order, but not beyond it" (2007, 487). A study by Gerald Gamm and Renee M. Smith supports this conclusion. After studying multiple tours and newspaper coverage of McKinley, the authors conclude that McKinley took only "small, hesitant steps" away from earlier norms (1998, 97). He generally "avoided speaking to the mass public. When he did speak, he continued to adhere much of the time to earlier standards of nonpartisan, non-policy oriented rhetoric" (105). These conclusions give further evidence that we can speak meaningfully of McKinley more closely approximating an earlier rhetorical norm because he did not go public continuously, as modern presidents do (Crockett 2009).

My examination of McKinley's speeches and addresses during the time prior to war yields similar evidence. McKinley made 31 speeches and addresses from the time he took office until the war began (McKinley 1900). Notably, none of the 31 explicitly mentioned his position regarding war with Spain. Only two of these speeches took place between January 1898 and the end of April 1898, when the most important events leading up to the war took place. One of these speeches was his address to the National Association of Manufacturers on January 27, 1898, mentioned earlier and cited by Laracey as evidence that McKinley did mention policy in his speeches.

The other address was at the University of Pennsylvania on February 22, 1898, just over a week after the sinking of the Maine. The main purpose of the address was to honor George Washington, but McKinley addressed policy specifically and the sinking of the Maine by implication. With the naval commission still reviewing the cause of the ship's explosion and the public in a retaliatory mood, McKinley drew attention to three important lessons from Washington's farewell address, arguing "(1) for the promotion of institutions of learning; (2) for cherishing the public credit; (3) for the observance of good faith and justice toward all nations" (1900, 73). Later, McKinley praised Washington for emphasizing "the necessity at all times for the exercise of a sober and dispassionate public judgment. Such judgment, my fellow citizens, is the best safeguard in the calm of tranquil events, and rises superior and triumphant above the storms of woe and peril" (77). Thus, McKinley did address policy in general terms and implied his position on the proper attitude toward Spain and the coming naval report by emphasizing good faith to other nations and sober judgment. McKinley's implied argument offers an important corrective to the scholarship that concludes that he did not mention his position on war because he did allude to his position on one of the central incidents propelling the march to war.

The Pennsylvania speech is also important for understanding McKinley's rhetoric before the war as a mild transition in the evolution of the rhetorical president. Such a tactic is reflective of Harpine's second phase of McKinley's rhetoric, in which he "argues by implication," though this instance came before the time when Harpine argues the second phase began. Also, if Laracey is correct that McKinley's "silence" on Spain was a calculated decision to rely on diplomacy, and not evidence that McKinley was more closely allied with nineteenth-century norms, why allude to the Maine in this speech? Rather, this speech might instead reflect the restrictions of norms in transition. McKinley went on tours before the war (though not one with a strong policy message) and soon after (where policy was mentioned)--why did he not go on one on the eve of war? Would not a speech to a frenzied public help assure them that diplomacy was the proper position? Using the same evidence, one can just as easily interpret McKinley as wanting to address the public, but lacking the institutional mandate to do so in anything but an indirect, infrequent way.

Regardless, the frequency with which McKinley went public before the war is small in comparison to George W. Bush and other modern presidents, such that we can speak meaningfully of two traditions. At most, it appears that McKinley was a transitional figure from one rhetorical norm, especially prior to war. The method and content of his rhetorical appeals are much closer to many of his predecessors than to his followers. And most relevant to the present inquiry, he did not speak publicly about the war before its onset except once indirectly, though he did use some press releases, as Ponder notes.

Public Perceptions and Beliefs

McKinley's beliefs and psychology reinforced his lack of rhetorical acts. He believed that power resided in Congress, feared executive power, and thought it was the president's duty to cater to popular opinion, not to lead it (Linderman 1974). (10) McKinley's attitude toward war ran counter to his belief that he should obey congressional and public opinion, both of which supported war: "I have been through one war; I have seen the dead piled up, and I do not want to see another" (quoted in Linderman 1974, 29). These contradictory demands left McKinley "paralyzed" (31).

Consequently, the public was left to infer (often incorrectly) McKinley's feelings during the prewar period. One of McKinley's presidential secretaries noted that 90% of the mail that the White House received in the last months before the war supported his policy, yet there was no consensus among the letters as to exactly what that policy was (Linderman 1974). McKinley's lack of a clear public stance allowed key events during the buildup to the war to be interpreted as supporting Cuba, most notably Senator Proctor's visit to Cuba and subsequent speech. Both Offner and Linderman note that Proctor's speech to the Senate was a key moment in propelling America toward war: he clearly and unequivocally stated the deplorable conditions in Cuba and the United States' humanitarian interest. Yet the speech was given additional support because of the widespread misperception that Proctor acted under McKinley's approval, and articulated his position (Linderman 1974). Proctor was close with the president and did meet with McKinley prior to leaving for Cuba, but only to inform McKinley that he was going. Without any statement by McKinley, the public was left to connect the dots. As with the Maine, a prowar interpretation followed. Headlines read that McKinley had sent Proctor (Linderman 1974). This evidence extends the notion that McKinley did little to sway public opinion against war; in saying nothing about his position, his position was anything to anybody.

Even as late as the month war was declared, McKinley's position was unknown. Most interesting was the public's reaction to McKinley's speech to Congress on April 11. It "was not a war message" and still left open "the possibility of further negotiations" (Gould 1980b, 49). The ambivalence left it open to interpretation. Examples of diverging reactions include the Women's Christian Temperance Union's response, which affirmed his message of peace, and veterans' groups sending their approval to McKinley, offering themselves to serve in the war (Linderman 1974). Given McKinley's silence, his agenda was set for him. Instead of leading, "The war spirit ... flowered in a void of executive guidance" (Leech 1959, 176).

Institutional Limitations

Could McKinley have spread a message had he wanted to? Perhaps. Linderman notes, The party might use private funds to win an election, but the American Presidency was not yet an agency whose mission could justifiably encompass a broad manipulation of public opinion. An office of peace information employing ... speakers, literature, and press handouts was in McKinley's conception beyond the limits of presidential propriety. More surprising was his failure to set out his position through other channels more familiar and orthodox. He might have dispatched personal emissaries--or gone himself--to the nation's largest cities. He might have made allies of those newsmen who ... "cluster like bees" around the White House ... Even without a bold decision to enlarge the sphere of presidential activity, some instruments of communication were available. There were many Americans waiting from some word of direction from the White House. They received none. (1974, 31)

Letting his position be known to the public, however, is far from setting the agenda on a different course against war. (11)

In fact, as Linderman notes in his analysis of the war, the institutional capability to get out an executive-coordinated message to alter the agenda--in the way that Bush did--did not yet exist: "The executive was unequipped to register broad public sentiment, to temper it in response to data pertinent to situations overseas and to translate the result into a national policy and program incorporating both public opinion's claim to consideration and the administration's own informed sense of the national interest" (1974, 151). An anecdote is illustrative of McKinley's beliefs about the executive branch's ability at the time: McKinley was surprised to discover that his superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey could offer him a better map to follow U.S. fleets than the one McKinley was using torn from a school geography textbook (Linderman 1974). Whereas modern presidents benefit from using extensive intelligence-gathering institutions and press relations officials, earlier presidents did not have the same resources. This absence fits with the rhetorical doctrine of the time: if presidents are not supposed to be prominent leaders of popular opinion, there is no need to develop the means to do so.

Where presidents were lacking, the press filled the void. The press had superior information-gathering resources at the time and mass readership (Linderman 1974). Congressman often deferred to the press for facts, citing papers on the floor (Linderman 1974). Research indicates that the press can exert some influence on the agenda. (12) Antidotal evidence illustrates the press's influence at the time. The papers of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were powerful mobilizers of public opinion. For example, after a private drive to raise money for the construction of the Statue of Liberty failed, Pulitzer's World began a drive that collected more than $100,000 from 120,000 people (Linderman 1974). Hearst's Journal often ran stories about brutal atrocities committed by the Spanish against the Cubans. Hearst's stories about the wrongful imprisonment of a beautiful Cuban woman named Evangelina Cisneros got her invited to the White House (Linderman 1974). Hearst's poll showing favor for war among governors is another example of the way in which he directed popular sentiment to make demands on the government (Linderman 1974). In response, McKinley had little to counter with but failed diplomatic efforts.

In McKinley, we can now see the embodiment of a pre-rhetorical president, or at least one who was hesitant to use the powers of the rhetorical presidency. Conflicting rhetorical norms and institutional limitations were a significant factor in his failure to set his agenda of peaceful resolution to the conflict. Had McKinley been free from the rhetorical common law, he could have tried to do so, as other twentieth- and twenty-first-century presidents have done successfully. Yet how likely is it that McKinley could have swayed public opinion?

As noted earlier, much of the scholarship suggests that presidents have a tough time altering public opinion and the public agenda (Edwards 2003; Light 1999). As Edwards (2003) persuasively argues, there are many factors impeding presidential influence: there is little evidence that even supposed charismatic leaders get results, the media is a significant obstacle to presidential control, there is a declining audience for presidential messages, plus those actually listening may not clearly understand the message they hear. Not only would McKinley have had to alter public opinion--a difficult task--but also he would have had to convince citizens against going to war, likely much more difficult than promoting a war, given the patriotic and passionate appeals to which promoting war lends itself. Even a very active McKinley likely would have been inconsequential.

McKinley's other avenue could have been to influence elites. Edwards (2003) shows there is some evidence suggesting that presidents can influence Congress. And as I argue later, the case of Bush suggests that presidents have some influence over media elites. Influencing elites may alter the way the debate is framed or the agenda that elites pursue. As Quirk (2007) and Tulis (2007) argue, rhetoric may not change opinion, but it can mobilize supporters to contact their representatives, which is a way to achieve small amounts of influence without necessarily changing aggregate public opinion. These arguments give some prospect for the potential for presidential rhetoric to succeed. Congressmen at the time was worried that their vote against the Spanish-American War would harm their chances for reelection. Contact from constituents opposing war could have made a little difference. But we will never know. Competing rhetorical norms, in conjunction with McKinley's beliefs about the proper place of the president and his decision to not speak publicly about the war, whether strategic or the product of a deeply conflicted leader, caused McKinley to not make substantial attempts to sway the public in his favor.

President Bush and the Iraq War

Undermining Deliberation

If McKinley represents a presidency in which public rhetoric was used infrequently, George W. Bush is perhaps one of the best examples of the rhetorical presidency unleashed. Bush's leadership style reinforced his use of the bully pulpit. Stephen Skowronek (2005) describes Bush's style as "leadership by definition." One of the lessons that Bush learned from his father's difficulties, which he recounts in his autobiography, is that the president must define himself, not be defined by others. Central to Bush's definition of himself was that he was committed to his purposes and scorned pragmatism and flexibility (Skowronek 2005). We can see his leadership by definition in the way he labeled his opponents--as flexible, nuanced, complex, and flip-floppers (all of these characteristics have an implied pejorative connotation). His foreign policy fits the same agenda: the Bush Doctrine of preemption allowed the president to define himself by being able to define his wars (Skowronek 2005). Unlike McKinley, Bush had no qualms or psychological hang-ups about convincing the public of his position on the necessity of war in Iraq.

In the case of the Iraq War, Bush is a rhetorical president of a special kind, one who highlights the ambivalence that Tulis has toward its development. Tulis uses Theodore Roosevelt's campaign supporting the Hepburn Act and Ronald Reagan's campaign supporting tax reform as examples of the positive use of presidential rhetoric. In each of these cases, the presidents took their cause to the people without going completely over the heads of Congress. They did so in a way that preserved Congress's ability to deliberate in a thoughtful way.

Presidential rhetoric is not always as sensitive to the deliberative process. As Tulis argues, in the case of Woodrow Wilson's campaign for the League of Nations and Reagan's speeches about his Strategic Defense Initiative, the deliberative process was thwarted by conflicting rhetorical demands because of the need to sell the policy differently to the people versus Congress and political elites. Wilson argued to the Senate that the League of Nations needed an enthusiastic founding because of its likely fragile nature, whereas in speeches before the public, he argued that the international support necessary for the League already existed. Reagan sold his "Star Wars" program to the public as a defensive system that would obviate the need for offensive weapons, while his advisors sold the program as a supplement to offensive weapons. Each thus ran into a rhetorical contradiction that harmed each president's credibility.

President Bush's attempt to set the agenda for the Iraq War fits into a third category, placing him in the company of Lyndon B. Johnson and Reagan. Johnson's War on Poverty and Reagan's budget overhaul legislation were both successful insofar as Congress passed each one. Yet each was ultimately a failure, Tulis argues (Johnson sacrificed substance for rhetoric and Reagan ended up with the largest debt ever), because there was little public or legislative deliberation.

Bush's rhetoric before the Iraq War fits well into this third, less deliberative, category of the rhetorical presidency. Recent scholarship attests to categorizing Bush in this way. Robert L. Ivie and Oscar Giner (2007) describe how America's inward "demophobia" was projected outward and conjured as the devil during the buildup to the war. This process "evacuated the political content of our democracy," causing us to demonize our enemies, "stereotyping their circumstances and motives and thus ... contribut[ing] to a toxic oversimplification of the complexities of the human divide" (Ivie and Giner 2007, 594). Such processes are not conducive to substantive deliberation.

Other scholars suggest that more than harming deliberation, the Bush administration was outright nondeliberative. Douglas Kellner argues that Bush used the politics of lying and elements of Orwellian doublespeak, "where war against Iraq is for peace" and "the occupation of Iraq is its liberation" (2007, 636). This rhetoric may indicate symptoms of the onset of a "post-rhetorical presidency." Under this new paradigm, presidential discourse "attempts to confuse public opinion, prevent citizen action, and frustrate citizen deliberation. Under these new conditions, the occupant of the White House does not define reality but fantasy; he or she does not energize citizens but numbs them; he or she does not attempt to inform and teach but instead to dumb down and stupefy" (Hartnett and Mercieca 2007, 600).

Examining Bush's rhetoric from another perspective indicates that it was more rational and deliberative. One of Bush's core constituencies was the Christian Right. Framing the case for war in terms of good and evil and using language that conjured the devil were key ways in which this group and Bush understood the world. Placing the case in concrete moral terms was the language in which the president and many supporters deliberated issues. Thus, to speak in such terms may seem nondeliberative to outsiders, but to insiders, it sounded like a cogent case for war.

I examine evidence for a lack of deliberation more closely later. But first, I look at how Iraq became a policy option in the first place.

Iraq Vaults onto the Agenda

One way to understand how Iraq reached the agenda is through a focusing event (Mazarr 2007). As mentioned earlier, the sinking of the Maine and the speech of Redfield Proctor acted as powerful symbols to strengthen and focus the public mood toward war. The 9/11 attacks acted similarly. However, 9/11 focused attention and influenced the agenda in a distinct way. Among the general public, 9/11 focused attention on the problem of terrorism, which was directed at al-Qaeda and eventually at Afghanistan. Within the Bush administration, 9/11 focused attention in two directions--toward Afghanistan and Iraq.

Prior to the attacks, neoconservatives in the administration had been interested in removing Saddam Hussein from power (Mazarr 2007). (13) Thus, 9/11 acted as an event on which to hang their preexisting policies and attitudes toward Iraq (Mazarr 2007). (14) According to Kingdon (2003), advocates of a particular policy often will sit dormant within or around government until an opportunity arises to attach the solution they already have at hand. Michael J. Mazarr highlights the importance of focusing events when he writes that "the same evidence about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist ties existed on 9/10 as on 9/13, but no one in the U.S. government was talking about invasion" (2007, 15). The terrorist attacks provided an option that was not as plausible in a pre-9/11 world.

To get the public to see war with Iraq as a plausible response, the administration treated 9/11 as a "spillover policy window." A spillover window follows, and is attached to, a previously existing principle (Kingdon 2003). For example, after one industry is deregulated, proponents of deregulating other industries can try to take advantage of the spillover window created by the initial principle. The war on terror that resulted from the attacks on 9/11 provided a principle to which a somewhat related issue, Iraq, could be attached. But Iraq was not a logical response for the average citizen. After the attacks on the World Trade Center, there was no public outcry to attack Iraq. The administration had to persuade the public to get support for Iraq as a legitimate agenda item--in effect, make 9/11 spill over into Iraq.

This spillover was achieved by shifting the definition of Iraq. Before an issue can enter the agenda, it must be lifted from the realm of "conditions" and be defined as a "problem" (Kingdon 2003). For example, crime is a condition that we may take for granted as something that is unavoidable. Crime becomes a problem only when we change our perception and believe that we should do something about it (Kingdon 2003). Prior to 9/11, terrorism was to most Americans, in the main, a condition, not a problem that we actively needed to do something about. But 9/11 changed our perceptions. Iraq, too, was more of a condition than a problem. To perceive Iraq as a problem, especially a problem we should go to war over, the administration had to change the way in which Americans perceived it. It is to the rhetoric by which the administration did so that I turn to next.

Successful Rhetoric

How did the Bush administration successfully link Iraq to 9/11? Sue Lockett John, David Domke, Kevin Coe, and Erica S. Graham suggest that the administration's communications indicate a "concerted strategy to link one crisis into another" (2007, 199). Bush did so by consistently invoking three key themes: 9/11, the presence of external threats, and America's battle against evil. Each theme elicits useful responses from an audience. For example, 9/11 invokes terrorism fears and the administration's swift response (John et al. 2007). External threats highlight the perceived Republican skill in handling foreign threats (John et al. 2007). Calling threats "evil" places the administration on the side of good (John et al. 2007). These three themes were introduced long before Iraq, when the administration was making its case for homeland security. What John et al. suggest is that Bush was able to use the same three themes later when making the case for war with Iraq, "without substantive changes in the accompanying argument" (2007, 199). The three themes provided a rhetorical bridge that connected two separate issues; each provided a broad enough justification for action initially for homeland security, which could be drawn from later when justifying Iraq.

Moreover, the administration attempted to explicitly, and directly, link the two by citing evidence that al-Qaeda had direct links with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. One such attempt was the release of gathered intelligence that the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with a member of the Iraqi intelligence community in April 2001 (Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004). Though the meeting could not be confirmed, and Dick Cheney admitted so on Meet the Press, Cheney and the administration used the alleged meeting to argue for war. Further, in his speech to the United Nations, Colin Powell argued that al-Qaeda operated within Iraq through its leader there, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, although intelligence showed that there was only a loose association with Hussein and that al-Zarqawi operated in an area of Iraq that was outside Hussein's control (Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004).

To create a link, the administration also relied on "strategic ambiguity"--for instance, when Condoleezza Rice suggested that al-Qaeda members had been in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein had associated with terrorists (Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004, 182). President Bush repeatedly mentioned these links in his press conference on March 6, when the country was on the precipice of war (Kellner 2005). The success of this tactic is evidenced by the widespread public belief in ties between 9/11 and Iraq: 66% of respondents believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, according to an October 2002 Pew research poll (Kellner 2005), and 76% of respondents believed that Iraq was assisting al-Qaeda, according to a CNN poll taken in February 2003 (Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004).

Additionally, the president and vice president often used misleading rhetoric to overstate claims about the weapons capability and activities of Iraq. For example, when Tony Blair visited the United States in September 2002, Bush showed the press photographs of alleged weapons facilities indicating that Iraq was close to having a nuclear bomb in 1998 (Kellner 2005). Several media outlets showed these pictures to be fraudulent, though others trumpeted the pictures as evidence of the danger of Iraq (Kellner 2005). On the same day, in one of the administration's coordinated media attacks, Cheney restated claims about the ties between Iraq and 9/11 and attempted to blame Iraq for anthrax attacks in the United States in 2001, despite evidence pointing elsewhere (Kellner 2005).

Part of the rhetorical success can also be attributed to Bush's use of euphemism (Bromwich 2008). The danger of euphemisms is that, through overstatement or understatement, they have the "power to efface the memory of actual cruelties" and that the user may "come to believe what they hear themselves say" (Bromwich 2008, 28). The importance of language is evidenced by the careful thought that the administration put into what they would call their response to the 9/11 terrorists attacks. They settled on "global war on terrorism," which was "at once simple-sounding and elusive, and it has served its purpose as nothing more definite could have done" (Bromwich 2008, 28).

Most relevant to the rhetoric used to set the war agenda for Iraq was the term "unspecifying grandiosity," which allowed new events to fit neatly under its umbrella (Bromwich 2008, 28). Similar grandiose langue was implemented consistently by Bush officials such as Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell when they repeatedly invoked "mushroom clouds" and "nuclear blackmail" in television interviews (Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004). This language was part of a larger trend begun after the 9/11 attacks with the use of rhetorical devices such as a perpetual war on terror and a Department of Homeland Security that color-coded threat levels, where the administration employed the "politics of fear" to achieve its policy ends (Kellner 2007, 622).

If such rhetoric overstated the case for war, the description of the removal of Saddam understated the difficult, violent, and costly way in which Saddam would be removed. Calling Saddam's removal "regime change" sounds benign, as if it were a natural occurrence in any political system, not a violent removal by means of war (Bromwich 2008). Reference to "taking out" Saddam similarly understated a violent method by invoking "the reflex of the skilled gunman and the image of a surgical procedure so routine that it could be trusted not to jeopardize the life of the patient" (Bromwich 2008, 28-29).

Institutional Factors

Rhetoric, regardless of how well crafted, is useless if there are institutional restraints against a president using it. First among these is that Bush, along with other twentieth-century presidents, was freed from the grip of competing rhetorical norms, which restrained McKinley. When studying Bush's carefully planned rhetorical tactics, it is important not to forget that McKinley had little and infrequent rhetoric, let alone fancy themes. This stark contrast is evident in the way the Bush administration sought to "sell" the war to Americans in the same way that a corporation would sell a product. Reflecting the advertising logic, White House chief of staff Andrew Card had the following to say about the timing for introducing the war campaign: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce a new product in August" (quoted in Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004, 151). The administration even set up a special group to sell the war. The White House Iraq Group included Card, Rice, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Karl Rove, among others (Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004).

Bush also benefited from a new institutional relationship between the president and the press. The press can have a strong independent effect on the agenda process, whether it is by shaping the way an audience conceives an issue (Iyengar and Kinder 1987), or more forcefully by influencing other agenda actors such as the president (Edwards and Wood 1999; Johnson et al. 1995).

Although the press can have a strong effect on the agenda, it did not during the lead-up to war with Iraq. The media was largely uncritical of the administration's claims for war. Part of the problem was general trends in journalism toward more "infotainment" coverage, as well as decreasing budgets for investigative journalism at most newspapers (Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston 2007). This uncritical stance was also a result of an unwritten rule in the press "favoring prepackaged, officially sanctioned news events" (Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston 2007, 16). Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston argue that under this rule, [W]hat carries a story is not necessarily its truth or importance, but whether it is driven by dominant officials within the institutional decision-making arenas such as executive policy circles, or legislative or judicial processes. The advantage generally goes to those officials with the greatest perceived power to affect the issues or events at hand, the greatest capacity to use the levers of office to advance their news narratives on a regular basis, and the best communication operations to spin their preferred narratives as well. (2007, 29)

The administration, with the White House Iraq Group and its special intelligencegathering units (discussed later), was in this officially sanctioned position of power. With few officially sanctioned actors, such as Democratic Congress members, speaking out against the administration's claims for war, the press was uncritical because it had no official source from which to draw the criticism. Coverage of the few who spoke out was limited because of patriotic fervor and genuine fear among many media outlets of appearing unpatriotic (Moyers 2007). This relationship magnifies a president's ability to set and control the agenda.

Evidence of the press's subordinate, uncritical role abounds. For example, Michael Massing (2004) notes the way in which major newspapers, including the New York Times and Washington Post, left articles critical of the administration's claims (if they ran critical articles) off the front page, hidden further back. Howard Kurtz, a Post writer, noted that the paper ran more than 140 front-page stories articulating the administration's claims, but only a handful of critical stories, not all of which were on the front page (Kurtz 2004; Moyers 2007). Nowhere is this lopsided coverage more apparent than in the treatment of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations. Both papers ran front-page articles supporting his speech, with the Times running three (Massing 2004). The Post had four editorials praising the speech in the same issue (Massing 2004). Critical coverage in each paper was delegated to page A22 in the Times and A29 in the Post (Massing 2004). This positive coverage was in spite of the poor evidence that Powell used (Zarefsky 2007).

More than a year after the Iraq War began, the Times apologized for coverage that was "not as rigorous as it should have been" (New York Times 2004). The Post ran a similar piece recognizing that it had not given critical stories prominent coverage (Kurtz 2004). We can see the power of this uncritical role in the way the press reacted to the next major event after the war, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Even after admitting to poor coverage prior to the Iraq War, the press again served a subservient role to the administration by not calling the abuse torture and by buying its claims that the cause was a few bad apples (Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston 2007). That two liberal-leaning papers were so swayed by the administration is evidence of its control of the agenda.

Were there available sources to support more critical coverage? Both Massing and Bill Moyers note that Knight Ridder-owned newspapers were much more critical and, in hindsight, much more accurate. Ridder's success can be attributed to its use of sources much lower down the ladder, the "blue-collar" government agency workers (Massing 2004; Moyers 2007). Walter Isaacson, former chief executive officer of CNN and former editor of Time, describes Ridder's coverage: "The people at Knight Ridder were calling the colonels and the lieutenants and the people in the CIA and finding out, ya know, that intelligence is not very good. We should've all been doing that" (Moyers 2007). As early as October 2002, Knight Ridder was reporting information from more than a dozen sources that there was pressure in the Pentagon to fix intelligence in favor of war (Moyers 2007). Not until after the war did more of the press cover this issue (Danner 2005).

Bill Moyers (2007) asks in disbelief, "How do you explain that the further you get away from official Washington, the closer you get to reality?" One explanation is that although information critical of the administration's claims was available and very easy to get, the administration exerted extreme control over the agenda because of the institutional relationship that Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston describe. This overreliance on official sources may indicate laziness and a narrow view of the proper sources for investigative journalism, but in any case, official sources such as the president had increased influence.

Another institutional change benefited Bush. Whereas McKinley's executive branch lacked the expansive intelligence-gathering apparatus that modern presidents have at their disposal, Bush not only had intelligence agencies, but also his administration set up its own intelligence-gathering unit to rival the traditional ones such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) (Hersh 2004). Conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon set up the Office of Special Plans shortly after 9/11 (Hersh 2004). Its main goal was to find intelligence supporting the administration's claims for war that Wolfowitz and his superior Donald Rumsfeld thought the other agencies were not uncovering (Hersh 2004). Said Rumsfeld, the goal of Special Plans was "to put the data under the microscope to reveal what the intelligence community can't see" (quoted in Hersh 2004, 210).

The office relied heavily on former Iraqi Ahmad Chalibi, his Iraqi National Congress, and their Iraqi defectors. The defectors he supplied to the administration and U.S. news sources claimed they had seen evidence of weapons of mass destruction and knew of links between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Stories of the defectors were featured in many publications leading up to the war, including Vanity Fair and several front-page articles in the New York Times by Judith Miller (Moyers 2007). The Office of Special Plans effectively won the fight in the intelligence community and largely overran the CIA and DIA leading up to the war (Hersh 2004). The office highlights what a president can do free from rhetorical restrictions and the importance that other officials, in addition to the president, play in setting the agenda under the rhetorical presidency.

Failure of Deliberation

Did Bush's use of the rhetorical presidency achieve his desired ends? Yes, but at the cost of substantive public deliberation. Like Reagan's budget and LBJ's War on Poverty before him, Bush's use of the bully pulpit undermined deliberation before the war. Tulis writes that Johnson's War on Poverty failed because "the same popular rhetoric that provided clout for victory substituted passionate appeal and argument by metaphor for deliberation" and "produced a hastily packaged program" (1987, 172). (15) As discussed earlier, the Bush administration relied on passionate rhetorical appeals, invoking mushroom clouds and weapons of mass destruction, and coupled these appeals with weak intelligence estimates, discussed later.

The failures of the mainstream press and Congress contributed as well. The press's failure to challenge the administration's claims before the war is one example of the relative absence of public deliberation. The press's failure is a symptom of a larger problem. If Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston (2007) are correct--that press coverage is a symptom of debate, or lack thereof, in the government--we can see their failure as evidence of a congressional failure to speak out against the war. The press had few "official" resources to draw on to report claims that were critical of the administration. Speeches in Congress critical of the war, such as Ted Kennedy's or Robert Byrd's, were the exception rather than the norm. Many top Democrats at the time, including Senators Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, believed that the intelligence and supported the war. Senator Robert Byrd describes the mood in the Senate: "Having handed Bush carte blanche by passing the Iraq war resolution, it wanted no more to do with the matter ... Privately members would engage, expressing horror at Bush's path ... But there was not a lot of eagerness to say anything on the record" (2004, 186). Congress, too, assisted the deliberative problems.

Subsequent events have disclosed the haste with which the administration went to war and highlight deliberative and policy failures. Several major reasons the administration provided for war have been proven false: no significant weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq (Duelfer 2004), and Iraq's links to al-Qaeda and 9/11 have been discredited (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 2004). Further, as the Downing Street memo and the Crawford transcript suggest, intelligence was being "fixed around the policy," and Bush had little intention of letting UN weapons inspectors stall the march to war (Danner 2005, 2007). Finally, we now know that planning for the postwar period was scant, and the ongoing war in Iraq shows that what postwar planning was conducted has led to a disastrous postwar occupation (Gordon and Trainor 2007; Office of the Special Inspector General 2008; Ricks 2006). Given these failures, it is hard to call Bush's use of the rhetorical presidency to set the agenda for war in Iraq successful. (16)

Conclusion

Declaration of war against Spain was an act which has been and will always be the greatest grief of my life. I never wanted to go to war with Spain. Had I been let [alone] I could have prevented [it]. All I wanted was more time.

--William McKinley, 1900

I know it is hard for you to believe, but I have not doubted what we're doing. I have not doubted.... There is no doubt in my mind we're doing the right thing. Not one doubt.

--George W. Bush on the Iraq War in an interview with Bob Woodward, 2008

What conclusions can we draw from the comparison between McKinley and Bush? The study of Bush suggests that modern presidents have substantial power to set the agenda with respect to war. That power is enhanced by the more frequent use of presidential rhetoric and the institutional resources aiding it. Yet such control is not an inevitable consequence of the rhetorical presidency. The rhetorical presidency in no way necessitates a media that relies too much on top-level administration sources for its information. Knight Ridder is a case in point. Further, the rhetorical presidency can and has been used in a way that does not undermine deliberation, as Tulis illustrates with Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt. Each employed "a principled rhetoric that set the agenda of debate without intruding upon the deliberative process" (Tulis 1987, 193).

While this study cannot make sweeping conclusions, given that it draws only from two case studies, it does raise several questions for existing literature on presidential agendas and the use of the bully pulpit. Is there anything specific about a war agenda that gives president added command of the agenda? The literature that focuses on the president's impact on the foreign policy agenda has not studied war. (17) As commander in chief, the president may be able to exert stronger influence on the agenda for war than in other policy domains.

Further, we may find an enhanced agenda impact if we study more than just the president. Bush's use of other officials to help set the agenda suggests that research should move beyond the president. As the Bush administration's use of the White House Iraq Group, the Office of Special Plans, Iraqi defectors, and the public speeches and television appearances of many other administration officials, most notably Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, demonstrates, much of an administration's ability to set the agenda emanates from the president and those around him. Some of the literature suggests that the president has little, and perhaps declining, influence on the agenda and what the public thinks (Edwards 2003; Light 1999). Other research suggests that the president has more influence (Cohen 1995; Kernell 1993; Peake 2001; Peake and Eshbaugh-Soha 2008; Peterson 1994; Steger 1997). The Bush administration's case for war suggests that studying multiple actors united under one agenda might give the president more influence than previously thought.

Rethinking the president's agenda influence may also require rethinking the president's relationship with the media. Previous research suggests that the president is largely responsive to the media and has little influence on it (Edwards 2003; Edwards and Wood 1999; Johnson et al. 1995; Wood and Peake 1998). Peake (2001) has found some support for presidential influence on the media. Widespread support for Bush's claims in the media suggests that the president can exert strong control on the media during wartime.

Finally, as I hope this study illustrates, Tulis's model is still a useful way to study presidential rhetoric, agenda setting, and public opinion management, even if we reject his claim that presidential rhetoric began in the twentieth century. The first reason for his continued relevance is that there is still important empirical work to be done on the president's impact on deliberation and public policy. Are cases of going public, undermining deliberation, and creating poor policy exceptions rather than the norm? If so, is Tulis wrong to be ambivalent about the frequent use of the bully pulpit?

Second, studying the use of the bully pulpit is a stepping stone to the larger question of the proper place of the president in the constitutional order: do modern presidents have too much power? Unless a president uses the powers of the rhetorical presidency in a careful way, a president can exercise too much power in the marketplace of ideas and undermine congressional deliberation, a place perhaps more suitable for wartime deliberation than a public forum in which discussion of war largely flows one way from the president down to the people.

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JUSTIN REX

Wayne State University

(1.) In Gallup polls from February 2001 until the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, in which respondents were asked, "Would you favor or oppose invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power?" the percentage of respondents favoring invasion never dropped below 52% (see http://www.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx#4).

(2.) David A. Crockett (2003) employs Tulis's model in this fashion in his discussion of George W. Bush's use of rhetoric advocating tax cuts in 2001. recent scholarship has extended beyond domestic agendas to include the president's foreign policy agenda (Edwards and Wood 1999; Peake 2001; Wood and Peake 1998). Evidence is mixed about how strongly, and even whether, the president influences public opinion and the policy agenda (Edwards 2003). Despite this attention, we do not know much about a president's ability to control the agenda for war, a gap that I try to fill in this essay.

(3.) However, Tulis (2007) counters that the fact that presidents mostly used other avenues than speech to communicate with the public is evidence of the power of rhetorical norms against going public directly.

(4.) The crux of the debate between Tulis and his critics seems to turn on the proper way to define rhetorical acts. Tulis takes a narrow view, defining rhetoric as spoken, addressed to the populace, policy specific, and intended to force Congress to act (Medhurst 2008). The last three characteristics fit most methods of presidential communications, including newspapers. However, if speech is an essential component, veto messages, letters, and editorials do not count, at least according to Tulis. So, another way to conceptualize the debate is that it depends on how much importance we place on rhetoric in its spoken form. Though presidents spoke in the nineteenth century, it usually was not accompanied by the other characteristics, according to Tulis. Though the rhetorical acts that Laracey and Zarefsky cite had the last three attributes, they were not spoken directly to an audience. With different definitions of rhetoric, we are left with different ideas of when the rhetorical presidency began.

(5.) Richard E Hamilton (2006) offers a similar characterization. Although much has been made of Theodore Roosevelt's statement that McKinley had "no more backbone than a chocolate eclair," Hamilton believes that the resonance of this view among subsequent scholarship is unfair. Hamilton argues that the rhetorical appeal of Roosevelt's statement diverts attention from other opinions at the time, including that of John Hay, who said that McKinley had "a very strong will, as you know, and ... likes to have things his own way" (quoted in Hamilton 2006, 491). Ultimately, Hamilton disagrees with the characterization of McKinley as weak and vacillating.

(6.) Recent research suggests that presidents can have some influence in controlling the foreign policy agenda (Peake 2001; Peake and Eshbaugh-Soha 2008). This research, however, focuses on the agenda impact of major presidential television addresses and issues that are less salient to the public. These conditions do not apply to McKinley's address on the Spanish situation, as it could not be televised and the issue was of high salience at the time. Although we do not have data on the effect of his speech at the time, opinion seems to have been divided. The Democrats at the time, seeing the speech as pro-Spain, responded with a pro-Cuban declaration (Offner 2004).

(7.) To some extent, McKinley violated the norms when he set out on a six-week swing through the country in 1901 with the intent to make speeches supporting tariff reciprocity treaties (Gould 1980a). As Tulis argues, however, "the speeches emerged as general discussions of the requisites of prosperity and make no mention of pending bills or treaties" (1987, 87).

(8.) Under Laracey's definition of presidential rhetoric, these actions might count as going public. Laracey argues that presidents often went public using the press during the era of partisan newspapers, and readers knew that they were reading the president's stances. But it is not clear that when McKinley made these releases, more than 30 years after the decline of the partisan newspapers, readers would have understood these releases as emanating from the president. This potentiality mitigates a clear classification of these releases as strong rhetorical acts with earlier uses of the press. However, for Tulis, as mentioned earlier, the key definitional element is that the rhetorical act be spoken, which exempts classifying the releases as rhetoric. Ultimately, I conclude that these minimal acts are so infrequent compared to modern uses of rhetoric by presidents that we can still speak meaningfully of McKinley as operating under an earlier rhetorical norm.

(9.) Ponder's account should be contrasted with Samuel Kernell's brief one. Kernell acknowledges that during important White House meetings, the press was allowed to wait in the anteroom to interview the president's visitors after, and that McKinley's staff "routinely gave reporters the president's speaking schedule and advance copies of his addresses" (1993, 64). Yet, Kernell says, "McKinley remained aloof, and any direct contact with the press was left largely to chance" (64).

(10.) In an 1898 speech discussing policy on the Philippines, McKinley said that "Congress is the voice, the conscience, and the judgment of the American people" (quoted in Milkis and Nelson 2003, 196).

(11.) Some research indicates that public opinion can influence presidential choices. Matthew A. Baum (2004) argues that public opinion constrained the decisions of both Bush and Clinton on whether to use force in Somalia. For attention to issues, Kim Quaile Hill (1998) finds evidence of a reciprocal relationship between mass opinion and the president for foreign and economic policy, but a one-way relationship from the president to the public for civil rights policy.

(12.) Johnson et al. (1995) and Edwards and Wood (1999) find evidence that the president is reactive to media attention of events.

(13.) Military intervention in Iraq was a policy option for many principle players in the Bush administration well before 9/11. For example, key players in the Bush administration, including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Donald Rumsfeld, wrote an open letter to President Bill Clinton in 1998, as members of the Project For the New American Century, urging removal of Saddam Hussein from power (see the text of the letter at http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm).

(14.) On the afternoon of the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld raised the possibility of going after Saddam Hussein at the same time as Osama bin Laden (Woodward 2004). The day after, he suggested to Bush's war cabinet that 9/11 presented an "opportunity" to attack Iraq (Woodward 2004, 25). At a Camp David meeting on September 15, 2001, Bush's top advisors voted against attacking Iraq immediately, though Vice President Dick Cheney said that the future possibility should not be ruled out (Woodward 2004).

(15.) The traditional interpretation of LBJ's failure as a president, and an alternative explanation for the failure of his War on Poverty, is that he was trying to do too much by fighting a war in Vietnam and introducing a massive domestic agenda to expand Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Using Stephen Skowronek's (1993) interpretation, LBJ was stuck in an articulating dilemma: he had to articulate FDR's domestic agenda while also articulating the foreign policy of containment handed down since Harry Truman. The ultimate failure of his domestic agenda because of foreign entanglements also fits James David Barber's (2009) model that LBJ was an "active negative" president who stubbornly pursued a policy that was doomed to fail in Vietnam. Again, there are other possible causes for failure.

(16.) Could these failures have been prevented with more deliberation? Not much deliberation might have been necessary. Kathleen Hall Jamieson argues, "From the rhetoric of the Bush administration that the public could have known and that those within the administration either knew or should have known as well that the evidence did not satisfy a high standard" (2007, 267). Zarefsky (2007) makes a similar argument about Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations. There were significant problems with the evidence cited that more questioning could have exposed. Is it easier to make the case against the administration's arguments in hindsight? Yes, but many were making the case as events were unfolding, most notably the reporting by Knight Ridder.

(17.) Scholarship on presidential actions before the onset of war is abundant, but it is not placed within the context of agenda setting for war. For example, see the historian Robert A. Divine's (1969) account of FDR's actions during the coming of World War II.

Justin Rex is a doctoral student at Wayne State University and the coauthor of several articles published in Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques, American Review of Canadian Studies, ACSUS Occasional Papers on Public Policy Series, and the Loyola Consumer Law Review. TABLE 1 McKinley's Tours and Popular Communication Speeches on Other Total President Tours Tour (est.) Speeches (est.) Speeches (est.) McKinley 2 110 20 130 Average Speeches President per Year (est.) McKinley 65 Source: Adapted from Tulis (1987, 64). TABLE 2 Purposes of McKinley's Popular Presidential Rhetoric President 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 McKinley X X X X X X Key: 1 = No popular rhetoric 2 = Greetings, "thank you" for welcome 3 = Speech associated with a ceremony (e.g., dedication of monument) 4 = Patriotic exhortation 5 = Reassurance by presence, attempt to gather information (sometimes referred to by presidents as "seeing and being seen") 6 = Attempts to establish peace and harmony among the regions or sections of the nation 7 = Articulation of general policy direction of administration (e.g., with regard to "economy," "foreign policy," etc.) 8 = Defense of war policy or action 9 = Identification of president's position as partisan (i.e., a position adopted by an organized, named political party) 10 = Attack on defense of a specific legislative proposal (or set of proposals) before Congress Source: Adapted from Tulis (1987, 66).