DANIEL SCHORR: With a glance over his shoulder at the coming election, President Bush has been revising his public strategy in a series of speeches leading up to the 9/11 anniversary next Monday.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, Host: NPR's senior news analyst Daniel Schorr.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: The theme of Iraq as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East has been soft-pedaled in light of the obvious fact that areas with elected governments have been sources of major headaches, that is, Lebanon, Gaza, Afghanistan and Iran. Iran's former president, Mohammed Khatami, has challenged the Bush administration by saying America will not make the mistake of attacking Iran.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: The president has gone back to emphasizing the role of Osama bin Laden, mentioned 17 times in his speech yesterday, and linking al-Qaida to the war in Iraq, which he calls the central battlefield in the war against terror.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: With an updated strategy paper, the president has for the first time released purported terrorist letters, recordings and documents. Who cleared them for release is not stated.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: But perhaps the strangest feature of the updated strategy is to link those who oppose the Iraq war with those who sought to appease Lenin and Hitler. President Bush picked up that theme from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who spoke last week of those who failed to respond to the rise of fascism.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: In the theory of his speeches today, Mr. Bush called on Congress to support detention and interrogation methods that he called necessary to prevent terrorists from imposing tyranny on the world. What the president is clearly trying to establish in voters' minds is that America is safer than it was five years ago but not yet safe enough.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: But the days when America rallied around him as the Commander in Chief are over, polls indicate. Whether a series of speeches presenting himself as America's Winston Churchill to his opponents' Neville Chamberlain will sway an increasingly doubtful public, that remains to be seen.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: This is Daniel Schorr.
The rhetoric from President Bush on Iraq and the war on terrorism has a retro feel, with frequent references to Sept. 11, Osama bin Laden, and even Hitler. The message: America is safe, but not safe enough.