right wing

The cover of the upcoming issue of the New Yorker magazine bears a satirical cartoon that incorporates practically every jab the right wing has taken at Barack Obama and his wife Michelle: the couple is pictured standing in the White House Oval Office dressed in Muslim garb. Barack is wearing a turban, Michelle has an "Angela Davis"-type afro hairdo and is shown toting a machine gun. An American flag burns in the fireplace as the couple engages in a "terrorist fist-bump." A portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs over the fireplace. The cover is titled, "The Politics of Fear." Both presidential campaigns quickly condemned the lampooning cover as "tasteless and offensive." Jeffrey Goldberg, a blogger at the Atlantic.com laments the whole situation as "the death of humor."

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. She will be working closely with former Hillary Clinton campaign guru Mark Penn. As CMD previously reported, Penn's dual role with the Clinton campaign and B-M was problematic. He was found to be working for Colombia on a free trade deal that Clinton opposed. B-M also works for anti-union clients, while Clinton was counting on labor's support. For her part, Hughes was unable to repair a badly broken U.S. image abroad. Hiring Hughes is part of a larger effort by Penn to increase B-M's "reach and expertise." Summing up the partnership, Penn said "Karen and I have had so many of the same experiences in the White House and campaigns, and have worked around the world. But we agreed that we won't let politics interfere in our business."

Reacting to a report that revealed American cigarette exports to Iran have risen tenfold during George W. Bush's time in office, Republican presidential candidate John McCain commented, "Maybe that's a way of killing 'em." He followed this by saying, "I meant that as a joke, as a person who hasn't had a cigarette in 28 years, 29 years." McCain's public joke about killing Iranians was the second of his campaign. Last year at a South Carolina campaign stop, when he was asked if there was a plan to attack Iran, McCain responded by saying "You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?" He then sang "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" before discussing what he believed to be the serious threat Iran poses to Israel's national security.

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. Lawyers who made money on the settlement began donating heavily to the Democratic Party, which opposes the corporate-organized "tort reform movement" that works to block such suits in the future. The massive lawsuit, subsequent settlement and increased donations to the Democratic Party (particularly in the South) sparked a vicious, under-the-radar war between Southern Democrats, the Republican Party and its corporate allies. Raw Story exposes the serious repercussions the tobacco settlement has had on the integrity of U.S. elections, particularly in the Southern U.S., as the Republican Party and corporate interests seek to cut off Democratic donations and exact retribution on lawyers and public officials involved in the original lawsuit.

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. In August 2004, CRC publicized "Unfit for Command," an attack on then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War record. CRC also worked for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; other clients include federal Republican Party committees, Concerned Women for America and the National Abstinence Education Association. David Freddoso, who authored the Obama book, is a former Ron Paul supporter who works at National Review Online. Regnery's president said the book will "look closely at Obama's relationships with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and onetime radical William Ayers, among other things."

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is engaged in an effort to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the "George W. Bush Sewage Plant." The group has been gathering signatures at local festivals, events and city parks and has already collected 8,500 signatures, about 1,300 more than is needed to put the question on the city's ballot in November. If the measure passes, the new name will become effective starting next January, when the new president is sworn in. Supporters plan to engage in a "synchronized flush" during the inauguration as a way to send a "gift" to the newly-renamed plant, saying they believe this will be a "fitting monument to this president's work." The chair of the San Francisco Republican Party called the group's effort "loony bin direct democracy," and vowed to defeat it. A spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which owns the plant, says that while his agency understands the humorous intent of the endeavor, the award-winning facility has been efficient at keeping the streets and ocean clean, thus the plant should be "the last place" the group should use to make a negative statement about George Bush.

Charles R. Black, Jr., a former lobbyist who is now a top adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, commented in an interview with Fortune magazine that another terrorist attack inside the U.S. would "be a big advantage" to McCain in the November presidential election. Black's comments brought the politics of fear and terrorism back into the 2008 presidential campaign, mirroring the 2004 campaign between Senator John Kerry and George W. Bush. McCain disagreed with Black's comments, saying he has long worked to prevent terrorist attacks in the U.S. and could not imagine why Black had said such a thing. Democratic candidate Barack Obama's campaign called Black's comments "a complete disgrace." Black later backpedaled, telling reporters, "I deeply regret the comments. They were inappropriate." Richard Ben-Veniste, a close campaign adviser and representative for Obama, called Black's comments a "very disappointing glimpse into the thinking of one of McCain's closest advisers."

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 the spin around same-sex marriage, Christine Todd Whitman's job pitch and how Wikipedia threatens the PR industry. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," how are same-sex marriage opponents linked to Iraq war proponents? 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!

Jeff Gannon"If you ever wondered what happened to Jeff Gannon, the former conservative reporter whose questionable White House credentialing and ties to several sex Web sites forced him out of a job," he's an active member of the National Press Club. Gannon -- whose real name is James Guckert -- initially drew attention after repeatedly asking softball questions during tense moments of White House press briefings. It was later revealed that Gannon had little journalism experience but regularly received day passes to White House briefings. "Press Club rules require that a new member be sponsored by at least two current members," explains Joe Strupp. One of Gannon's sponsors was Rick Dunham, now of the Houston Chronicle. Dunham said he supported Gannon because "my goal was to expand our membership into blogging and multimedia." The other sponsor isn't known. Gannon is on the Press Club's New Media and Newsmakers committees. The chair of the Newsmaker Committee, which "decides which 'newsmakers' to invite to some Press Club events," said of Gannon, "We need everyone we can get."

Dick CheneyThe Bush administration has long held that overly-aggressive interrogation methods used on detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were the work of a few "bad apples." Now, an investigation being conducted by the Senate Armed Services Committee has revealed that William Haynes II, General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense, sought the advice of military psychologists within a Pentagon agency to design the interrogation techniques. The Committee's findings add to mounting evidence that the detainees' torture resulted from decisions made at the highest levels of government, particularly within the office of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.