Bush's Perception Management Plan

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"George W. Bush has been criticized for disdaining fact in favor of faith in his own instincts. But he is savvy about the dangers that information can present to his authority over the government and the American people," writes Robert Parry. "That is why the first priority of his second term has been the elimination of the few government sources of information that could challenge the images he wants to project to the public. Bush doesn't want the State Department or the Central Intelligence Agency portraying his Iraq and other foreign policies as abject failures or reckless adventures. So, by attacking these remaining pockets of analytical resistance, Bush is moving to ensure that his administration can keep much of the U.S. population seeing a near-empty cup as almost entirely full, a concept known in the intelligence world as 'perception management.' ... The end result will almost surely be that Bush will hear even fewer contradictions to his judgments, while Congress and the news media will be cut off from internal government sources of information that could be used to question Bush's decisions."