Public Relations snafus endanger credibility

The shocking news released today that the fourth highest official of the Homeland Security Dept, Deputy Secretary Brian J. Doyle, has been charged with online seduction of a minor, a presumed fourteen-year old girl, serves notice of the continuing Public Relations shipwreck the administration is making. Coming on the heels of the impotent response in rhetoric and action regarding revamping border policy and the baffling spectacle of illegal aliens demonstrating and making demands, this is yet another straw on the strained back of public faith.

As poster `psych' somewhat prophetically pointed out in a commentary on `WSJ urging admin shake-up', the White House and this administration show peculiar disregard for the need to nurture and keep public confidence. As noted, this is especially necessary in a democracy, where so much of direction of the public space is now determined by impressionistic forces like hyperbolic headlines and glitzy talking point banners and `segments' on TV commentator shows.

This makes it all the more important to take pains and care to at least project an impression of calculation, awareness, and competence. After `image disasters' like Katrina, and the failure to fully and honestly grapple with the fact that the search for WMDs in Iraq was hyped, only to prove a no-show, the administration cannot take trust for granted. In a way, it must `re-earn it' and go on the offensive. Not on the offensive in the Rove-style manner of partisan maneuver and clever traps, but on the Public Relations front. Not only must a new attempt to `get the message out' regarding Iraq and other policy trends (like the border and immigration debate currently lighting up the boards this week), but a new message and spokesmen must also be put forth.

It is essential that the semi-defiant and aloof air of unaccountability and even concern with past errors the leadership gives be transformed. Public confidence is being shaken, and arguably, much damage that undoes all the careful and vigorous PR image building that Ronald Reagan did to bring the Republican Party back from Nixon's disgrace and scandal. As all know, Watergate and Viet Nam between them shook public confidence in their government and leaders like few events have. Then the 1980's and the successful winning of the Cold War did much to restore that. In the 1990's despite constant personal scandals, the Clinton Presidency presided with a Republican Congress over an intelligent handling of the economy that let a memorable boom run its course.

Now it seems, in the name of misplaced loyalty, and unthinking stubborness to not appear to admit a mistake or even need for revision, that the adminitration has things on a course to combine a Nixon/Carter impression of both non-transparency, and incompetence. Unfortunately, the pundits are increasingly sounding like "hear nothing, see nothing" hacks, that won't admit they have disappointed the public's confidence in the climate they have allowed to form. Whether the mania of the anti-Bush far left, or the never-say mistake neocon right, both are only able to thrive and hijack the public discourse because NO other voice of reason and leadership speaks up loudly and often. Because of this, thoughtful people are increasingly doubtful they can trust the likes of either CBS or FNC for any accuracy -- their partisan tilt is too obvious, and raises concerns that any truth dissemination, good or bad, is being spun beyond recognition by "handlers" whose only skill is vote manipulation, not inspiration.

So we can read that Iraq-story embedded blogger Michael Yon just now had to point out that:

"Last week, in America, a radio producer for a large syndicated program in the United States called me requesting that I go on the show, a show that has hosted me many times and where I’ve been referred to as, “Our man in Iraq.” But when I said Iraq is in a civil war, that same producer slammed down the phone and, in so doing, demonstrated how much he reveres truth....When the receiver slammed into the phone, the producer revealed himself naked; he was not supporting the troops, nor the Iraqis, but the President."

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/

We saw a similar inexplicable `disconnect' between the obvious need to "speak up" and a bewildering official paralysis in Hurricane Katrina's wake. In this sense, the details of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco hardly matter. Who to blame for what is really immaterial. Instead, it is an instructive warning, and `snapshot' of the general disarray. For the truth is the fiasco is an apt metaphor for the the complete neglect of giving the appearance of command and smooth organization that the administration persists in, whether it be the border, Iraq, or Katrina. Its not a `details' thing -- it is an IMAGE perception, that is mulelishly disregarded in complete defiance of the fact that once a government loses the confidence and trust of its people, it has lost almost everything else by default.

- Anthony