Democracy

A Match Made In Political PR Heaven

Karen Hughes and Mark PennFormer undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and longtime George Bush advisor and confidante Karen Hughes has taken a position with PR giant Burson Marsteller.

No

Is Bush Guilty of Murder? Don't Ask That on Our Show

"As a Los Angeles county prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi batted a thousand in murder cases: 21 trials, 21 convictions, including the Charles Manson case in 1971. As an author, Mr. Bugliosi has written three No. 1 best sellers and won three Edgar Allan Poe awards, the top honor for crime writers. More than 30 years ago he co-wrote the best seller Helter Skelter, about the Manson case. ... [H]is latest, a polemic with the provocative title The Prosecution of George W.

No

Stauber Interviews Sirota: The War, Dems, MoveOn and The Uprising

Sheldon Rampton and I could see it coming soon after the Democrats took control of the Congress in 2007. In March, 2007 we pointed out that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with the support of MoveOn, was advancing legislation that would fund the war in Iraq while giving Democrats PR cover, allowing them to posture against it while the bloody, brutal occupation of Iraq continues. We were attacked at the time by Democratic partisans, but unfortunately our analysis has proven correct and today the war in Iraq is as much of an interminable quagmire as it was when the Democrats took control of the House and Senate in January 2007.
Sirota The Uprising

Democratic political activist, columnist and author David Sirota has also strongly condemned this failure of the Democrats and "The Players," DC's professional partisan insiders such as MoveOn. On May 24, 2007 he wrote: "Today America watched a Democratic Party kick them square in the teeth - all in order to continue the most unpopular war in a generation at the request of the most unpopular president in a generation at a time polls show a larger percentage of the public thinks America is going in the wrong direction than ever recorded in polling history. ... That will make May 24, 2007 a dark day generations to come will look back on - a day when Democrats in Washington not only continued a war they promised to end, but happily went on record declaring that they believe in their hearts that government's role is to ignore the will of the American people."

This month, more than a year later, the Democratic controlled Congress once again gave the Bush Administration funding to continue the Iraq war well into 2009. David Sirota now has a new book out: The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington. In it he expands on his criticism of the Democratic Party and its partisan, professional antiwar activists in the leadership of MoveOn.

Sirota writes in his new book (page 82), "The absence of a full-throated antiwar uprising is tragic at a time when the country appears more skeptical of knee-jerk militarism than ever before. ...

The PR People in the Lost Chapter on Iran / Contra

To understand how the Bush administration "could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs," look to the 1980s, suggests Robert Parry.

No

The Hidden War: Big Tobacco and the GOP Team up Against Southern Democrats

When the major American tobacco companies signed the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the 46 states who sued to recover the costs of treating sick smokers, the companies agreed to nominal advertising restrictions and massive yearly payouts to the states.

No

The Swift Boating Begins in August

Saying "we believe the media whitewashed the candidate," the president of Regnery Publishing announced an August release for a book titled "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate." The PR firm Creative Response Concepts (CRC) is promoting the book.

No

Image and Reality in Zimbabwe

"Horrified directors of global marketing giant Young & Rubicam have begun a sell-off of their holdings in Zimbabwe, after learning the company's head was behind Robert Mugabe's election campaign image makeover," reports Rowan Philp.

No

Pages

Subscribe to Democracy