By host Tom Ashbrook:

According to the latest poll, 55 percent of Americans now think going to war in Iraq was a mistake. More oppose the war, and even more disapprove of President Bush’s handling of it.

Torie Clarke says it doesn’t have to be this way. Clarke was chief Pentagon spokesperson during the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions. She sold the war in Iraq. Now, she says, President Bush should sell it again — with honesty and openness and fireside chats.

But what about the misinformation at the heart of the original push to war? Torie Clarke’s new book is titled “Lipstick on a Pig.” She’s got answers. We’ve got questions.

Hear a conversation with the Pentagon’s top spokeswoman during the invasion of Iraq.

Guests:

Torie Clarke, former spokeswoman for the Pentagon from 2001 to 2003. She was press secretary for President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 re-election campaign. Her new book is “Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game.”;

Michael Massing, media critic, and contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. He is author of “Now They Tell Us: The American Press and Iraq.”;
Tom Bowman, Pentagon correspondent for the Baltimore Sun.