Americans receive a mixed message

As President Bush encourages Americans to get back to business as usual after the terrorist attacks two weeks ago on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, he is simultaneously warning that a long struggle lies ahead and that more terrorist attacks are possible.

Delivering these extremely disparate messages is a challenging balancing act for the president. Yet the carefully calibrated dual message appears to be working so far.

Bush is scheduled to come to Chicago today as he enjoys the highest job-approval ratings of his brief tenure, nearly 90 percent in the latest national polls. That is despite nearly 80 percent of the respondents in one poll saying they expect another terrorist attack on the United States, reflecting widespread anxiety.

Action after words

Now, observers say, the president must follow his words from the bully pulpit of the presidency with effective action, lest that support erode and make it even more difficult for Americans to return to anything resembling normal behavior. Some wonder if the president, in urging a return to normalcy, has missed an opportunity to ask Americans to respond with vigor and urgency, as they have in the past.

“The worst thing that could happen is to wave the red, white and blue pompoms and lose the game,” said Leon Panetta, chief of staff in the Clinton White House.

Presidents have typically called for national sacrifice during times of crisis and warned Americans to expect change. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, for instance, President John F. Kennedy warned Americans of the “many months of sacrifice and self-discipline” that lay ahead.

But Bush has pointedly refrained from such talk. Indeed, on the Saturday after the attacks a reporter asked the president what sacrifices he expected of ordinary Americans.

“Our hope, of course, is that they make no sacrifice whatsoever,” Bush responded.

“We would like to see life return to normal in America,” he said, though he noted that beefed-up airport security would likely cause greater delays at airports.

Ari Fleischer, the president’s press secretary, indicated the administration’s view that it is complementary, not contradictory, to urge a return to normal lives at the same time the government is taking such unusual measures as pressing Congress for greater powers to track down terrorists.

“It’s important to send a signal to America to resume lives, to go to restaurants, to go to movies, to enjoy recreation, to fly, to conduct the business of the nation and the commerce of the nation,” Fleischer said.

“As the nation gets back to normal, as the nation resumes its business and its commerce, and people’s jobs are secure, it strengthens our nation,” he said. “And as the nation is strengthened economically, the nation will be stronger to engage in what it must engage in, militarily and otherwise.”

A need to sacrifice

Fred Greenstein, a political scientist at Princeton University, said he found it odd that the president has asked that the American people do nothing more than attempt to live their lives normally.

“That really seems to me to be losing an opportunity because it’s a time when people almost want to be called to sacrifice,” he said. “So it seems to me not to be perfect pitch to say we don’t want any sacrifices. If in fact part of what we’re calling for is vigilance, then the image of returning to normal smacks a little bit of returning to complacency.”

To Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., Bush is delivering “a bit of a mixed message. There’s no question about that, but we’re going to have to go back to business as usual and wage this war. There is no other alternative.”

Still, Fitzgerald said, “Maybe it might be better [for the president] to say this is an extraordinary time,” in which people can’t really return to normal.

U.S. needs spur

Panetta, a former congressman, agreed that instead of aiming for normalcy, the White House might do well to frame the current moment as a crisis calling for the American ability to overcome long odds.

“You want people to obviously get back to work but maybe one way of making that happen is saying these are unusual times and they demand that we respond to the challenge,” Panetta said. “That we roll up our sleeves, we become more intense in what we’re doing to make sure this country succeeds.

“The reality is, whether we like it or not, this nation does respond to crisis . . . ,” Panetta said. “To some extent you have to say to the American people, we are living in a much more dangerous time than we thought, and we’ve got to respond. ... I think the American people would take that.”

Aside from the psychic healing that will come at various rates for different Americans, the most important factor in getting the nation back on track will be what the government does from here on, Panetta said.

“It’s the actions that are going to count. ... We’ll feel a lot better about things if we feel secure,” he said.