Like many predecessors, this White House seeks the most telegenic settings possible for major presidential pronouncements. So when President Bush on Tuesday night called on Americans to “stay the course” despite increasing violence and U.S. military deaths in Iraq, he spoke in front of paratroopers at Fort Bragg, N.C. In the past, he gave similar speeches from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and before military and civilian personnel at the Army War College.

The reception from his immediate audience was respectful but surprisingly quiet, although the troops cheered when Bush vowed “we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.”

In the end, however, the setting matters little if the substance doesn’t succeed. Indeed, Bush’s appearance in a flight suit on the carrier for his May 1, 2003, declaration of an end to major combat operations in Iraq became a grotesque parody for the false optimism of a policy gone awry.

And Tuesday night’s setting won’t matter if his failure to go beyond prior declarations about the importance of the U.S. effort and his determination to persist until it succeeds don’t stem a steady deterioration in public support.

That may explain why his speech was less an effort to provide an optimistic scenario for the mission in Iraq – “There will be tough moments,” he conceded – than a renewed attempt to justify it as a central battle in the war on terror.

That’s probably a smart political calculation, since public support always has been greater for his handling of the broader war than the one in Iraq. It’s hardly coincidental that as Bush’s poll numbers have sunk, Karl Rove has used the 9-11 attacks to demonize administration opponents.

Even there, though, there are signs that argument might not sell as well as it once did. A CNN poll that indicated increased overall acceptance of the Bush policy also showed that more than half of the Republican-leaning national audience thought the war in Iraq has made the war on terror tougher or has made little difference.

And despite his more candid portrayal of the problems, there was a disconnect between some things Bush said Tuesday night and reality. Of the 160,000 Iraqi security troops he described as “trained and equipped for a variety of missions,” barely 2 percent are capable of fighting on their own. The cooperative steps with Iraqi units that he announced are already, for the most part, in effect. Of the $34 billion he said has been pledged for reconstruction, less than half comes from other countries, and most is just that – a pledge.

And while the president said he would provide more troops if U.S. commanders requested them, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said on CNN that not one commander with whom he met on his recent trip “said they have enough troops.” The implication was that they know not to ask for more because the reserve pool is so thin.

To some degree, Bush faced an impossible task. There was no way he could accept the growing demand for a timetable without giving the insurgents a fat target. And there was no way he could say with specificity when the fight would be won.

Still, there were things he could have done, judging from recent comments by Biden, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and others who fear disaster in Iraq.

One is an increased role by Middle Eastern and NATO countries to seal the borders from infiltration by Saudis, Syrians and others who have made Iraq a terrorist base since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Bush also could have urged greater use of those countries to train Iraqi forces and of reconstruction funds to improve Iraqis’ everyday lives.

The good news for Bush is that if Tuesday’s speech was mainly an effort to buy time to allow the Iraqi government to take root and the military fight to be won, he still has time. Though more than half of those sampled in recent polls considered the entire venture a mistake, they were split on the need for a withdrawal timetable.

And while administration officials disdain comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, consider this: It took a far bigger anti-war movement a lot more time when many more Americans were dying – plus a major scandal – to force an end to the U.S. role there.