Mark Penn runs the labor-busting PR giant Burson-Marsteller and is the top strategist and pollster for Hillary Clinton's campaign for president. His mixed loyalties have been a continuing image problem for Clinton, to the degree it makes the news. The Wall Street Journal first reported he "met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate (Clinton) opposes." Burson-Marsteller "has a contract with the South American nation to promote congressional approval of the trade deal." The New York Times later noted that Penn apologized for his conflict of loyalty saying "the meeting was an error in judgment." But that was not enough. On Sunday Colombia fired Penn (and presumably B-M his company) for his embarrassing bumbling. Still, Hillary is sticking by her man - for now.

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at Al Gore's not-so-green PR firm, who cares about the FDA, and a strange definition of "civil rights." In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," how Big Oil is courting the blogosphere. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Freedom's Watch, the right-wing advocacy group, recently hired Carl Forti, the former political director for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, signalling that the group "is getting ready to gear up for Election 2008," reports Bill Berkowitz. Forti, a notorious mudslinger, was communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee from 2004 to 2006, turning it into what the the Annenberg Political Fact Check called an "attack-ad factory" whose work "stands out ... for the sheer volume of assaults on the personal character of Democratic House challengers." Freedom's Watch has pledged to spend close to $250 million during the coming election cycle, but Berkowitz notes that several prominent staffers have recently left the group, including its co-founder, Bradley Blakeman, and Matt S. David, its communications director, amid "reported questions about the actual existence of the $250 million war chest that Freedom's Watch's leaders have boasted about." The group has also been criticized by some conservative activists as a "rootless organization built to capitalize on the Republican agenda" that "no doubt will raise and spend a lot of money and much of it will go to the PR company that organized it and for which they are a front."