Bush has always used the military as a backdrop for pictures. Places like Fort Benning, Georgia. The troops have always been enthusiastic supporters. Now?
Not so much.
The pictures were just what the White House wanted: A teary-eyed President Bush presenting the Medal of Honor posthumously to a slain war hero in the East Room, then flying here to join the chow line with camouflage-clad soldiers as some of them prepare to return to Iraq.
A military base has usually been a reliable backdrop for the White House, and so Bush aides chose this venerable Army installation in western Georgia to promote his revised strategy to the nation while his Cabinet secretaries tried to sell it on Capitol Hill.
To ensure that there would be no discordant notes here, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, the base commander, prohibited the 300 soldiers who had lunch with the president from talking with reporters. If any of them harbored doubts about heading back to Iraq, many for the third time, they were kept silent.
Yeah, gag the soldiers. Soldiers will always tell you what they think and feel. Gagging the soldiers won’t stop them from thinking or feeling it, but it will piss them off about being gagged.
MG Wojdakowski just stepped on his poncho.