"the administration seems determined to keep selling us the same burger,"

[rodeodance]

...........Just knowing that this report exists will enrage the American public. Rather than changing the policy, the administration seems determined to keep selling us the same burger, while trying to make us feel better about swallowing it............

Can the same techniques used to sell corn flakes, ketchup and power drills be used to sell the Iraq policy to the public and extend the U.S. occupation long into the future? The Bush administration and the pentagon think so.

Madison Avenue To The Rescue
As more Americans called for an end to the U.S. occupation, the Pentagon secretly ordered a report on ways to extend it long long into the future with the help of "Madison Avenue" marketing techniques--the same techniques used to sell breakfast cereal and hardware products to the American public.

Now available for the public to read, (Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation, PDF File 1.37 MB), the report was prepared by the Rand Corporation and cost the American taxpayer $400,000 dollars.

On the heels of a deadly July, with more and more U.S. soldiers killed while Iraqi government officials prepare themselves for a month long vacation, the Rand report opens with a line that suggests the exact opposite of what Americans want (emphasis mine):

[niceypoo]

1. The only problem is the burger is made of poo poo

Nobody will bite it anymore.

[SpiralHawk]

2. Link?

Puh-lease

[C_U_L8R]

3. They don't understand communications at all

particularly advertising.
You can't make people do something they don't want to do...
and IF you fool them into it.. they will resent you forever.

That's 101 Bernbach stuff they've botched up with their clumsy arrogance.

[Demeter]

4. A Failing For Which We Ought to Be TRULY Grateful

because I'd hate to think where we'd be if they were competent at it.

[C_U_L8R]

5. I'm forever thankful for republican incompetence

and it makes really good comedy too

[Double T]

6. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to force 'US' to drink the pentagon/ military............

industrial complex's kool-aid? No wonder bushco has 'US' in debt up to our eyeballs with SHT like this.