Treating Injured Military Personnel With PR

In early March, George W. Bush announced the creation of the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors as a way of ending controversy over substandard treatment of injured U.S. personnel at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The commission has been created to "conduct a comprehensive review" of the care provided to injured military on their return to the United States, but it is also planning its own PR campaign. On March 22, the commission stated that it would award a no-bid contract for the period to August 1, 2007 to the Bethesda-based PR company, LMW Strategies, which is run by Lorraine McHugh-Wytkind. McHugh-Wytkind is a former communications director for Sen. Hillary Clinton. O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports (sub req'd) that the contract is worth $100,000.