THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2002 — " Peace activists " take heart. If ever there was a sign that the Bush administration is not serious about removing Saddam Hussein from power, this is it. The administration has allowed House majority whip Tom DeLay of Texas to become the leading voice on Capitol Hill calling for Hussein’s demise.

I’ll be perfectly honest. I don’t think much of DeLay. I find him an objectionable reactionary and, like outgoing Georgia Republican Bob Barr and Democrat Cynthia McKinney, a polarizing figure on Capitol Hill. I nonetheless agree with every single word of Delay’s speech on Iraq. I concur that " our national security will suffer an unwise and unacceptable risk " if Saddam Hussein and his scientists are permitted to work on their chemical-, biological-, and nuclear-weapons programs. My verdict on DeLay’s speech is right message, wrong messenger.

It says something about the current Bush administration that it ceded the ground on the Iraq debate to the likes of DeLay. Twelve years ago, when President George H.W. Bush faced a similar crisis regarding Iraq, he reached across the aisle to find Democratic leaders he could work with. He chose, in particular, a Democratic congressman from New York, Steve Solarz, to help lead Democratic support for the Gulf War. (You can read about Bush’s turnabout on Solarz in his memoir, A World Transformed. For a critique of the Democratic failure on Hussein this time around, check out Marshall Wittmann’s online " Bull Moose " column — Wittmann, a former adviser to Arizona Senator John McCain, is, incidentally, no longer a Republican.) But the administration, evidently, hasn’t been serious about conducting a real public-education campaign on the need to confront Hussein. All we get are pronouncements from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that end up as grist for ridicule on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. (Both the host and Robin Williams engaged in many mirthful moments mocking the imperative to combat Iraq. Things won’t be as funny when and if Hussein launches a nuclear-laced super-Scud at Los Angeles a few years from now.)

President Bush and his handlers have been relying on a hands-off public-relations strategy for years now. First there was the Front Porch strategy, where GOP big shots were jetted down to Austin to meet with the up-and-coming Texas governor. Then there was Bush’s hands-off campaign strategy. Since September 11, Bush and his pals have all but resided in the bunker, failing to engage the American public properly on the seriousness of the task at hand. Bush and company have a difficult task before them, but if they intend to do what they say they’re going to do, they must do a better job of engaging Congress and the American public.